The Serpent Cycle: Severus
by Thom Heap
Summary: "The Serpent Cycle" retells the story of the Harry Potter saga from Severus Snape's point of view. The first chapter, "Severus" follows a young Severus Snape through his dark, final years of school, as the awkward teenage boy slowly becomes a Death Eater. Disclaimer - I don't own the rights to the characters or anything else in the Harry Potter Universe.
1. Chapter 1

The Serpent Cycle

-Part One-

"Severus"

This book is the property of The Half-Blood Prince

-Potions Class. Wednesday. Raining. 

Stop looking at her - stop looking at her - stop looking at her. I swear if that prat Potter turns around, and looks at her again I will _burn_ through this desk with my bare hands. Turn around, look back at the black board, and stop looking at her. Turn around, and perhaps you will actually learn something for once instead of just acting like you know it all. Stop _looking_ at her.

God I want to scream. Every fiber of my being wants to scream. Stop looking at her! I would scream it. I would were it not for the consequences of punishment. And even Potter knows about consequences. Hero. Some hero. A coward, more like it. A coward who gets cold feet at the last minute, rather then deal with the consequences. I know what consequences await me – far worse then what would have awaited the false hero, were I to scream my heart out now. I'll just write. I'll just write and let this quill burn paper rather then my fists this desk. It is a poor substitute. This outlet and does nothing to vent the full extent my rage. But it is all I have.

I cannot scream - I haven't got it in me. I haven't the courage to face the consequences of release. So then I am the coward, I am the failure and I hate myself for it.

No. I swear I will get back at him – at all of them some how. One day, I will be fearless like they are, and I will have my revenge. I cannot begin to imagine how, but I will become fearless, I swear it… For now, I can only write about it. I can only write how much I hate them. I will find the courage and the strength to scream. I will – I have to.

Stop. Looking. At her.

-Monday - History of Magic Class. Cloudy.

He's looking at her again. I thought he'd tire of her as he does all the others. He had stopped for a whole week and I was at peace. But now here I am in a fury writing once again for release. God, stop _looking_ at her! What are you thinking?

What the fuck are you thinking? Just to look at you Potter I can see your intentions. They need no magical means to be discerned.

-Oh God, Please tell me Tristan Skylark and Tisiphone Torchwood did not see me sneer just now. Please tell me no one to my right saw that. No one on my left seems to have seen… I must be more careful.

Turn _around_ Potter. Why does no one stop him? He gets away with murder – all three of them do. What if I were to blatantly cease to pay attention? Detention, loss of house points and of course an afternoon of endless ridicule. I rolled my eyes in Charms a month ago. A month it's been, and still they tell me to get glasses.

What does that even mean? Don't they realize how that joke doesn't even make any sense? I hate this place. I hate these people – _shut up_. I rolled my eyes. Thirty points I lost Slytherin. I got _detention_. Potter turns his back on class - outright mocks professors and he fucking _gains_ points. The injustice is staggering. Everyone loves Potter because he can catch a Snitch. He's good a Quidditch and so he is permitted to do whatever he pleases. It's the same bullshit every time. He turns around, causes trouble in class and is rewarded!

And now he turns to her. He turns to her – then turns to them whispers then they _laugh! _ Fuck you Potter, how dare you! You think I can't see it! Keep your disgusting, perverted - thoughts _off_ her. Do not disgrace her in your mind and don't dare disgrace her with your foul mouth to your fouler friends. Lupin. Black. Pettigrew. Mock her with your laughter you pigs – how dare you! I want to smash their faces into the stone walls of the corridor. Turn around all of you.

Don't see me. Don't see me seething with fury. Please tell me no one can see me. Oh how I want to smash all their heads in - I want to but God knows I don't have the physical strength or the will in my heart to actually carry out such an act. So helpless I am. I lack the fearlessness to fight back. I can only write and wish them silent. All the hexes and all the curses I know, but in the end, I am so utterly powerless. I hate it.

Three of them, three and a half... Those three have the entire school and the entire world on their side. I am only me. I am nothing in this… Lily help me. Please, please don't look back at him. You are all I have.

- Wednesday - Defense against the Dark Arts. Cold Sun.

Potter called me a fag. He outright called me a fag in the Great Hall while I was passing him and the rest of the Gryffindor dunderheads at their table. He would, it's such a typical brutish thing to do. Guys like him are always throwing around that term with out fully understanding the meaning of it - or what they're really doing. It's just wrong in so many ways...

As much as I hate what he's done, as much as I dread the rest of the school joining him in referring to me as such – what I hate most is how he will get away with it! The entire school – the Prefects, the teachers and even Dumbledore himself will all turn a blind eye to his cruelty. It's just like the Shrieking Shack. They do something wrong – to me, don't get in trouble and then I am forced to keep quiet! Its as if I am being punished – I am – they force me to help cover up their treachery.

It's so unfair. He's done so much for Lupin. The Whomping Willow, the Shrieking Shack, all the secrecy, the unlimited freedom permitted to them to keep quiet the conspiracy… What about me? What about everyone else? Yes, Dumbledore helped save a sick boy from a horrible life, but what about me? What about everyone else? That boy - along with his aggressive friends, has used his second chance at life to torment others and cause them harm. They verbally and physically attack us, especially me – and Dumbledore turns a blind eye. Tell them to stop! Please!

I'm not asking for much. I'm not asking for free reign, a tree or a house to ravage – just tell them to _stop_. Is this all really because I wear green and they red? Am I so evil because I read a few Dark Arts books that my mother gave me when I was young? Those books were all I had – my only friends for years. So what if I know hexes, I haven't cast most of them. Am I still evil? All Slytherins are presumed evil, so Dumbledore must think me evil. That is how it works. My forbidden knowledge makes me evil, and the cruelty of Gryfindors is seen as innocent.

I hate it! No one ever stops them. No one ever stops people like them from being horrid! It didn't used to be like this – not when Lucius Malfoy attended school. He was always looking out for us. I knew he was an honorable man back then. I knew we all owed him a great deal of gratitude for our good fortune - but I had no idea just how good we all had it until he left!

No one dared cross a Slytherin when he was in charge. How I miss those days now. When we lost him and Rodolphus, things took such a dramatic turn. Everything is different now. We have Avery as the next best thing, but he is still too young to wield the power once held by Lucius. Now the rest of the school is free to do and say whatever they want against the Slytherins. Its awful what they say about us. I _hate_ how often the rest of the school must have a go at me. Of course I understand, much of the hatred directed towards me is personal, and not a result of my house but… God I thought all this was bad in early years when Lucius was here, but that was nothing. Thanks to Potter, now the rest of the school is relentless. And they let him get away with it!

I hate it! No. No - these people don't matter. They don't matter. I just have to keep telling myself that. The O.W.L.s are all that matter. The O.W.L.s then N.E.W.T.s - and then I can leave this place. Then I will be free - left alone to read and write books… There, almost over. Once I have studied and performed really well on the O.W.L.s, everything will be all right.

-Slytherin Common Room. Night. Cloudless Sky.

I would write in fury, but for once in a long time I just don't have it in me. I am at peace finally. I am beyond prepared for tomorrow's exams, but - Lily.

We studied together. The entire day - just she and I alone... And now, I am not worried about anything. Even if the questions tomorrow are too difficult and I fail, it doesn't matter. Today was the perfect day, because I was with her.

She has been so busy herself lately. I've scarcely seen her. I've been so afraid that we've been growing apart, but today we sat in the grass under a tree and we studied. Just one book between us. It was just words on paper and yet it was so intimate. Waiting for the other person to finish the page, speeding up or slowing down to match each other. It was like we were breathing together. We were. Just the mere memory of it brings tears to my eyes as I write.

I love her so much. I can still smell her scent on my shirt. She was so close to me all day. I can still feel her hair on my shoulder - it was as if the sun itself was upon me - it was. But the sun was there it kissed us both. Finally this relentless winter gave way to spring and we were warm. But I know it was her. It was all her.

The sound of her voice is the most comforting sound I know. The moment I hear the warmth of her voice as she speaks - every cell in my body becomes still and at peace. I don't even need to see her, just to hear her and know she is with me in the room… that is the only time I ever feel safe and home. She is the only home I have ever known.

And Potter! All four of those idiots! To make things _that_ much better - they didn't study at all! I heard them talking and laughing about how little they knew! They think they might fail! Oh please let them fail! Please let them be expelled - then it will be Lily and me alone and safe forever! Oh God let it happen…

-Death

Kill me. Kill me. Please let me die. What have I done? Why why why why why.

I hate myself, I wish I were dead. I don't even know - why did I do it? Why did I do it? It was halfway out of my mouth when I even realized what I was saying - and even then I knew it was too late! She will not forgive me. I begged her, and I will l beg her again - for the rest of my life I will beg her forgiveness, but she will never give me forgiveness. I do not deserve it.

I called her a Mudblood. Angel. She is God in my eyes – her eyes and I called her – the worst name possible. _Why! _ Why why? I hate myself. Potter – that fucking bastard, those mother fucking bastards if they hadn't done it… I could kill them! I should have! Why did I freeze? Why did I unleash my fury – on her! What's wrong with me!

I want to cut myself. I want to cut myself open and bleed to death on this floor. I've ruined everything. Dear God, have ruined everything. This is really happening. This is real. No – why!

My worst fear and its happening. Oh God. Lily. -I've lost the only reason I have – Its real, its real. I lost everything. What will I do, what will I do?

What can I do? I can't write any more - I'm going to go lie in my bed. I won't sleep. I will never be at rest or sleep again. I'm nothing. I don't even know. This isn't real…I feel too sick, too dead to... I don't know what I am going to do... Just, lie in my bed and pray for an end.

I honestly hope to God I don't wake up tomorrow.

-Tuesday

I got up.

I got up. I don't know why I did, but I did. I lay there in my bed, and I saw no reason to move, let alone get up. I lay there for so long because nothing mattered. But then I thought of them. I thought of how much I fucking hate them. I didn't want them to think I was a coward. And that was the only reason I got up. I didn't want anyone to see me as afraid. I didn't want to let them think they'd beaten me.

So I got up, and I just went through the day. I just walked, not truly alive. I walked about completely empty, not thinking or feeling. I still can't believe this is real. But it is real.

In my darkest fears I never thought I would lose her - but I have lost the only thing I ever had. I don't feel anything. I don't feel anything at all, and yet I know when it hits me…

Thank God, this term is almost over, I can't imagine being here much longer. But then what of the alternative? Do I want that? DO I honestly want to go home? What's worse, this place or that place? And those two...

And - what will I do with my days? What about her? I am afraid. She - her house so close. What if I see her? What will I do if I see her? What will I do if I do not see her? I will see her - for I will certainly run into each other, but what now will I do? And what happens now to everything we had planned? What about everything we used to do over the summer holidays – what about that?

My hands are shaking. I can't write anymore, I can't do anything anymore. What will I do, what…


	2. Chapter 2

~Monday – Slytherin Common Room, First day back…

I survived summer. Barely. The first few weeks didn't do anything at all. I just sat in my room. I didn't read. I didn't speak. I didn't seek comfort in books or study. I didn't even touch the precious few potions I had in my stores at home... I didn't walk outside. I didn't go anywhere. Just lay on my bed, shot stunning spells at spiders and flies. Sometimes I sat in the corner, too afraid to move.

All I could do was to think about everything… and how much I hate myself for what I have done. I sat in the corner of my room. I was ready. I had it in my hand, ready. I sat there, and I held that razor blade to my wrist, I wanted to… but for some reason, I stopped...

I honestly don't know why I stopped.

So I just sat there in my room… But after a few weeks, it started to become unbearable. I wanted to split open my skull. I took whatever ingredients I could from the house - I mixed so many things so many times. So many potent toxins... How many times I wanted to just, swallow and go to sleep. I was so close, but still - I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I could have at _least_ made myself numb, but I didn't do that either. I will never do that. I will not make myself numb. I am so afraid, that if I do I will lose her completely. All I have left now is the pain of it. I cling to it still, for I think now as I did then, that this relentless feeling of sadness, shame and self-hatred is all that is keeping me alive. I realized that, and I began to understand the truth. I am meant to suffer. I deserve no less, after all must atone for what I have done. I had to accept it…

I tried. I tried so _hard _to just - take the pain. I tried but it got worse. Some nights, were so terrible, I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted so much to make the pain to stop – but I couldn't think how to do it. Potions deceiving or numbing me – that would be a lie! Besides - it could never be enough.

My chest and my arms hurt _so__ much_ from feeling so empty… There is no way to make that stop. There is no way to numb the ache that actually radiates from my heart – which I still can't believe. My heart _actually_ does hurt. But it is not at all like they say in poems or books or songs. They are _wrong_. That pain is only the start of it. My heart hurts yes, but it's so much more then that. It's my entire chest. My arms and my hands hurt _so_ much! All of it, just – excruciating longing and pain – from how much I just want to hold her in my arms – and I can't!

I will never have her, ever. I will never know peace. God why? No one could ever understand this. Normal people don't feel this way. No one could ever understand how much I just want to feel her in my arms and to feel her in me. I want to feel her heart in mine. I want to bury my head in hair. I want to breathe her in. I just want to breathe! I want to make all of this stop. She is the only thing that can release me from my suffering.

I do all I can to not to think of her. I can't think of her or the pain becomes too much to bear. It just gets so bad sometimes. I hate myself for it, but I had to do it...

My body was just, I don't know. Something was ripping me up from the inside and I couldn't take the pain in my arms and my chest. It was all I could to do make it stop - slashing at myself and just wishing I had it in me.

And that's what's so terrible. I did have it in me.

I did it so many times. I cut myself open so many times. So many cuts all over... Nothing deep at all, just enough to bleed out a little. But it would hurt – _physically_ hurt. The wounds would burn and take the edge off. Then I'd just counter it and close the wounds so no one would ever know. I hated myself every time I did it. But I was at such a loss… There is nothing to take that pain away.

But I am here now. I will do nothing but work. I will do nothing but focus on work and not think of her - or anything. I will not think or feel, and so God help me everything will be all right.

~Night – no moon, dark, getting cold already

First day, I survived. I have Potions tomorrow. I used to look forward to it. I used to want to go to Potions because I would work with her. Now I am dreading it. I am so afraid of what it will be like – to face her, and the rest of my life with out her.

~Twilight – my dorm room

Being back in Potions was just the greatest relief. Yes, she was there. Yes, I was intoxicated and comforted by the mere sight of her, but I did all I could to block out all thought of her.

It was the room. The room itself that brought me such comfort. I don't think I have ever come realize just how much of a sanctuary it has become to me over the years. All the familiar scents, just breathing them in set me free. And there it is - I could breathe again.

I felt so at peace, and than the big moment came. Slughorn invited everyone to dinner -the new additions to The Slug Club, myself among them. All those years I wanted so much to be one of his favorites. I wished so much to be in the Slug Club… because I wanted so much to be _somebody_. I wanted _her_ to see me as somebody. Now that it has happened, I don't care at all. It means nothing. I don't feel like anything. And what's worse is that she will be there at dinner. She won't look at me in the hall. She goes out of her way to avoid my gaze in class so how will this be? How awful and awkward will it be to sit at a table with her?

~Thursday - clouds obscure the night sky, still warm...

I went. She went. No she did no look at me. Slughorn kept asking questions – about us. Us, as if we _were_. What does he think? How could he think she would ever be with me, in _that_ way? It was mortifying - and she was furious. She didn't let on to the others that she was upset at all, but I could see the anger in her eyes. Her anger towards me and not Slughorn, of that I am sure. God what a mess I have made…

~Tuesday – sunlight in the Common Room

My plans to not feel and do nothing but schoolwork are going well enough. I keep staying late after Potions to work. Thankfully she does not. It is only Tisiphone Torchwood and myself staying to work after Potions these past few weeks. I don't mind the presence of Tisiphone Torchwood. She is a Slytherin who has never seen fit to harass or threaten me like so many of the others. I am than at peace to shut off my heart and work. I have worked hard in every class this term and I am content enough in that.

Now, I just get so mad at myself when I remember the summer. I hate that I did that to myself… And that _spell_. That first night it happened, it just came to me, from somewhere in the depth of my mind. I hated myself so much… that much I understand.

But when I think back on it now – even considering that unthinkable amount of self-hatred, how could such a horrific spell come to me? I am completely at a loss. Was my hatred that strong?

It was. I just, lashed out. I can still remember, just how torn up inside I was that night. This rage just exploded from my body – shot through my hands - I slashed them at myself. I had to do it. It was a primal, uncontrolled reaction. I slashed open my arms and my chest, just to relieve the pain I felt – for her. It was all I could do to make it stop. God I _hate_ that I did it!

It didn't even work all the time. But when it did work, I _cut_ myself. I actually cut myself! Moments later of course, reality would set in. I'd come out of my trance and when I would look down and see myself bleeding like that it was just terrifying. I remember being gripped by fear, it radiated from within me and then that emotion took over and sealed my wounds… Once again, I have no idea where the counter spell came from. I practically sung the wounds shut, though I do not know how the words or the melody came to me.

I don't know. Once I'd done all that, I was always too scared to do anything. I was to numb to even think at all, let alone think of her.

There is so much about that spell I do not understand. I'm fairly certain I have cast it once before – on _that_ day - against Potter. But once again, I was in such a state, I'm not sure what I did to cut his face. Something else takes over me when it happens. It's so _terrible_. Its one thing to hex people, all those jokes Avery, the others and I used to play on each other – they were nothing like this. Levicorpus – Leg Locker, we were just playing games with each other. But _those_ spells - they were nothing like the childish prank spells at all. I cannot fathom how such a dark destructive power came out of me. I am so scared. I am so afraid of what I am capable of.

So that's it. I cannot allow myself to go to that place. I can't. I have to work. I have to work really, really hard and I will be fine - just as I am now. I will be Virtuous. I will work, I will stay away from Avery and the others and I will keep to myself. I can do this, I can... I have so far.

So long as there are no events for The Slug Club anytime soon I will be fine.

~Thursday – Overcast. Cold. History of Magic Class

Sitting in History of Magic. I'd take notes, but I am just too irritated God, shut up Binns. Shut up and _stop_ calling me Snape. She was the only one who ever called me Severus. I hate Snape. I'd almost rather Snivellus. Anything but Snape – do not call me by that one's name EVER. Horrible. I hate it. They are all that way.

Muggles are aggressive and violent. The high concentration of Muggle-borns in Gryffindor surely accounts for their brutish behavior. Even Muggle women… That she displays none of her sister's cruel, envious nature is just a testament to her greatness.

But this _name_ problem. Every time I am referred to as such I must be reminded… Why must I be constantly reminded of all that… and of what was done to me? I _hate_ it.

What can I do, tell them I have taken my mother's name? That would go over really well - with the professors, with the idiots… But it is _mine_. My name that I gave to myself.

Not Snape. Anything but Snape. Why must I carry this fucking thing with me? Why must this be a part of me? So filthy I am. I am so cursed.

At least half of me is pure. I can focus on that. I am half good, I can focus on that and I will be all right. I am half good. I have that. That, they cannot take. They cannot name me either. I am sick of them giving me names. My name, I give to myself.

~Monday – Sunlight. Potions Class.

I haven't written in a while, which is a beautiful thing, because I haven't needed to. I have been Virtuous. I have lived a monastic life as planned. I just keep staying late after class to work, as I will today. I have so much studying, so many assignments to complete - it's almost exhilarating. I just have to keep working really hard.

~Wednesday – The Forrest

Its late, but the sun is still high enough to reach me here. The time for curfew is swiftly approaching, but I am not going back, not for a while. I just need to be out here in the woods. I've worked late everyday since I've come back. I am most at peace when I work hard, when I only think and do not feel. But here I am, outside on what I'm sure will be one of the last nice nights before it gets cold – because I _felt_ like it.

Despite how they mock me, I don't love to stay only in the dungeon as they say. Yes I am safe there from them, but even I want to walk freely outside. I love the smell of the grass and the trees. I love nature, and I should feel free to walk outside. But I never have, because of them.

I have always cowered in my room. I never sneak out like that pompous Potter. But I'm doing it tonight. I'm going to stay up here. I can't get over how beautiful it is…

Hidden here under a canopy of leaves, looking down across the grounds and I can see everything. The forests, forbidden and not, the lake - and even the stupid Quidditch Pitch looks beautiful in this light. The leaves are bright auburn. The red sun illuminates the leaves, so trees seem almost to be on fire. Embers from the sky are thrown across the lake. I cannot in words describe how beautiful it is. Photographs would fall desperately short of capturing this scene. I would stare at this sunset all night if I could.

As much as I may hate this place sometimes, it is still the most beautiful place to look upon. I honestly don't think there could be a more perfect setting anywhere else in the world…

And there it is. As beautiful as it is – and it is…. As beautiful as any landscape could ever be, I will never look upon anything more beautiful than her eyes, ever.

…I think over an hour has gone by since I wrote that. The gravity of that realization…

I feel so conflicted. I am so happy to think it, because it is true. The mere thought of it makes me smile. I literally cannot stop smiling at the thought of it! It's just so wrong! At least everyone else would think it so wrong. But it is not wrong to me. It is the truth, and I know it because I have seen beauty, a beauty no one else will ever see.

I am so strange! Who thinks of another person's eyes as the most beautiful thing in the world! And yet, who wouldn't! I could just cry in joy and pain at the thought of her eyes…

No one else can see her – not for what she truly is. I know they can't, I hear what they say. They talk about her beautiful hair, or her pretty face. They are right of course but what's worse - they talk about her "ass" or her "jugs". Such terms as if she is some whore. She is not one of your easygoing Gryffindor sluts!

Of course I think about her that way too… I am human. And yet, it is only a fraction of my thoughts of her – unlike the others who can only think in such terms and never get their minds out of the gutter. No one else would ever even think to look at her eyes, and if they do momentarily, they would never see her as I do. How could they? Simple minded brutes…

But I have this precious secret that no one else can ever know. No one will ever know the light in her eyes. When she looks at me, when she holds me in her eyes, only then am I finally whole. Nothing else matters or exists. I feel alive and weightless; I feel, I don't even know how to express it. But its as if then -and only then - that I deserve to be a part of this world. She makes me something… If that is all I have, her from afar, than it will be enough. As long as she is still on this Earth, than everything is all right.

And… there is still a chance.

But this is why I am so conflicted. I feel happy – and there it is I _feel_. The thought of her has made me _feel_. It goes against my entire philosophy. I cannot feel, I can only work. I have been doing so well. I can brew The Draught of Living Death near perfectly as it is, and I know I can still improve on it if I just keep working.

I see it now! All this time in the back of my mind I have been thinking it, but now I see. If I do really well in school she will see me as worth something again. If I stick to my plans to work hard and avoid Avery and the others… maybe somehow in a few months she will see me to be Virtuous and forgive me. I have to do well. What else can I do? It is all I have. There. There, it's written it's done. I will be Virtuous and not stray from that path. I'm going to read now, sun or no sun I can read by wand light.

-Bastards. Those four idiots would be out tonight. Such arrogance. I stay out past curfew and I am quiet, but they just strut out - practically screaming as if they own the place. I hate them. I hate them _so_ much. Go on, go. Go off to your precious fucking shack. Go. Leave me alone up here. Just let me be for once…

They've gone underground now, beneath the willow and into the passage. Gone… Surely they've reached the Shrieking Shack by now. God I hate the thought of them doing as they please, breaking rules and all of it with Dumbledore's blessing. I hate it.

I hate it, and yet, that's not even the worst of it. The worst part is how much it hurts. I hate to have to admit the truth of it. I hate how much I feel left out. No one ever invites me anywhere. I wanted to sneak out and had to do it alone. And that I have only done it now – snuck out for the first time in my sixth year? If only I were so fearless as they… All I have the courage to do is to write in my journal and read schoolbooks. And I hate myself for it. I hate myself for wanting to go with them. I hate myself for wanting to be there now.

~Thursday Morning. History of Magic Class. Windy.

Last night was a mistake. I walked outside and my mind wandered into dangerous territory. Too many terrible things stirred within me, but that's over with now. I'm staying to work late again. I'm just going to stay late and perfect The Draught of Living Death beyond what the book even says.

~Thursday Night – Slytherin Common Room

Fuck.

Fuck Fuck Fuck. Fuck this Bullshit.

Just as I was leaving History of Magic, some fourth year Ravenclaw came to give me a note – from the Headmaster. He wanted to see me. I knew the second I read it…

But I went to his office. I tried to keep an open mind. Maybe this time…

No. No – it was bad. He knew I'd snuck out. That fucker Filch told him. The headmaster had barely finished accusing me - I was mad, I don't know where it came from but I _said __it._

I told him he should speak with Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew as well. I told him that they had been the previous night just as I had been. He just smiled and nodded. I was so fucking mad. He didn't say _anything_ about them. He just went on to sentence me.

He gave me detention – for a _week_. I am to sit with Slughorn and do lines. That would have been fine. But he couldn't just leave it at that – no he had to take _fifty __fucking_ points from Slytherin – just so that everyone else in my house will be angry with me. God forbid I find sanctuary in Slytherin. I am not safe anywhere in this school.

I left his office. I walked past the hourglasses. Sure enough there was a significant drop to the Slytherin glass, while Gryffindor count remained quite stable. Fuck me.

Fuck him. Fuck Dumbledore and his fucking conspiracy to protect Lupin. I will take my punishment. Detention – with Slughorn? What difference does it make? I would have sat with him in his classroom after potions anyway so it makes no difference at all.

I can't get angry. I have to keep my head down and do what I'm told. Fighting won't do any good. God knows how I have come to understand that by now. Besides, I can't get angry - I can't let my emotions get the better of me. I cannot feel things -I can only work. Lines will help me after all. They will help quiet my thoughts, and once my thoughts and my thoughts are silent, my feelings will be as well. Then I will be able to return to my work.

I just have to return to my house now - with my head down and hope to hell no one sees me…

~Friday Night – My Room

Last night of detention. Now I can fully get back to my life, to my work…

~Wednesday Night. Raining. Slytherin Common room

I've nearly done it. Three weeks I've been staying late now… three weeks tomorrow. I love work and I've been still and calm all this time. But, Something Tisiphone Torchwood said today…

Like me, Torchwood stays after Potions to complete extra work most days. Of course Lily does as well, but she usually leaves before either myself or Torchwood does. I hadn't noticed until now, but Torchwood is really quite good with potions. I do my best to avoid her, she's Avery's cousin – for Lily's sake I avoid all such associations. But I slipped up and watched her the last four days after Lily had left class. It's been impossible not to notice what she's been doing. She keeps creating such enviously perfect Blood Replenishing Potions in class. Even Seventh Years have difficulty with that solution. She has a gift, and yet she is not in the Slug Club. Slughorn never calls her out on her excellence – even I never noticed. I've been wanting to ask her why that is, but I can't even work up the nerve to speak to her, let alone ask her something so rude and prying.

So I was shocked today when she spoke to me. I've always assumed she looks down on me just like everyone else does. After all, I keep mixing my imperfections in her presence… She asked me what it was that I had been staying late to work at... I told her what I'd been doing and I asked her the same thing. She said had been working after class on brewing The Draught of Peace perfectly. I looked down at the caldron on her desk. Sure enough, it was full of beautiful blue fluid, the exact color of Aegean Sea - Mediterranean water... "But the solution is perfect," I told her when I'd seen it. She only laughed…

"There's perfect, and then there's actually perfect," she said. But it really was _perfect_. Shimmering silver vapors were gracefully pouring from the cauldron - such a difficult potion and yet she had created it so effortlessly. I was so stunned and then I just blurted it out – "How can you not be in the Slug Club?" Dear God I thought she was going to hit me or something. I was mortified, but she just laughed. She just laughed and then she said it…

She explained that she isn't upset about not being picked – something about wanting to be an artist but substituting with the art of potion making. But what she said about why she had not been chosen… She said she is not one of his favorites because she refuses to sweet talk him. -She said she doesn't have the strength, and can't bring herself to be false with him or to laugh at his bad jokes. She said she cared more about actually working then pleasing him. And then she said what left me so truly unsettled - "I am not the kind-hearted person Lily Evans is to take pity on such a pathetic old man who spends more time fishing for compliments then he does teaching."

_What!_

I was really offended, but I didn't let on. I didn't know how to react. I just nodded and went back to my own caldron. It bothered me, but I couldn't help but wonder... I have been patient with him, I may not laugh at his jokes but I certainly do lie to him. I pretend to care when he gives me advice – which is almost always wrong. I have never had it in me to contradict the professors. I just nod and quietly do what I know is right when they are not looking at me.

Is that why he chose me - and not that bitch Torchwood - to join the Slug Club? You know what, good. Better it should be me than to include that Torchwood girl - if she is going to accuse Lily of sweet talking Slughorn to get ahead…

But, now that I think about it, that's not what she actually said. All she said was that she didn't have the "strength" to be as "kind hearted as Lily is". She wasn't accusing her... I wad angry with her for nothing I think. Oh Lily... Lily is just the kind of angel to take pity on an annoying old professor… And as much as I want to deny it, we all know who gets ahead around here - and why that is. It is why Potter and his gang get away with murder. Its all a popularity contest. The rest of us have or photos pushed to the back of the shelves to be obscured by others, forgotten forever, as nothing….

~Thrusday. Grey Skies, Potions Class… 

I am sitting here watching her now. Even though I have sworn to keep her out of sight out of mind. But this has been eating me. I have to see it, if it is true…. So I have been watching her all through class every time Slughorn walks near her.

She _does_ sweet-talk him.

She _giggles_. I've never noticed it until now but that is not even her real laugh. She is faking it! I never thought about it until this very moment - but she practically _flirts_ with him.

I am not upset by it. I know she is doing this because she sees that he needs the attention. It is an act of pity. It is. She is not the kind of person two-faced person to do it for their own benefit. She does this for him. Lily is at her best when she is being kind and helping others. She brings light to everyone in her life, even bad people. I know, because its what she used to do for me. She can be kind to the most awful person – and mean it. She loves and cares for her sister after all…

So I am not at all upset by her behavior... How could I be? It is why I love her. What disgusts me is the fact that if I had the strength to be outgoing, if Tisiphone Torchwood were to fake it we would be at the top of all our classes too. It disgusts me because that's what it takes. If you flatter your professors and you can have everything and run wild like Potter and his gang.

~Saturday. Slytherin Common Room. Cold and Misty

I perfected The Draught of Living Death yesterday. I should feel elated, but now that it is over I feel so empty. At least the last few weeks spent working towards the draught's perfection gave my life meaning. It sustained me, but now that is gone. That today is a Saturday, and I that have no classes today - does not help me at all. God it's only eleven o'clock in the morning. Nothing to do but wait for the day to end… I hate it. Then it gets to be night and I feel I've accomplished something by surviving so long… but then I wake up and I'm right back where I started. Why am I so fundamentally flawed that the simple act getting through a day is an accomplishment for me?

Surrounded by people laughing. Why do I have to be like this? I don't get it. I do not understand how people can just - _live_. I'm so torn. I wish I wasn't so alone. I wish someone wanted me around, but even if people did want me to around, I could never truly let go and… _be_ with them. What's wrong with me?

I'm going to go read. What else can I do?

~Monday Night – My Room.

I don't know, who I hate more now, myself Black or Potter. I honestly don't. And I don't know if I am mad at myself for trying to do it last night, or because I failed.

"Just thought you should know."

"Just thought you should know," Black tells me. He did it to make me hurt and it worked and I hate him for it. Black wanted me to know that my beloved Lily has been hanging around with them now. That she recently has spent a lot of her free time in their wretched fucking presence. I hate the thought of her being any where near Potter and he knows it – they both do. Why tell me? Just stops me in the hall on my way to class and tells me.

And the worst part is this is all my fault. Had I not said those things she and I would still be friends. She would not have had to turn to those assholes. Had I not been so enraged by what they did to me, I would not have lost my senses and said those things to her. She would not be spending time with them or be in danger of being hurt by them. She is in danger because of me. If they hurt her –

So now what will I do? I can't even work my own spell to cut myself open and relieve my pain! I can't punish myself for my sins by it. God knows I should be grateful that it didn't work _again_ when I tried to do it just now – but I'm no! I tried! I tried and I cannot even work my own fucking spell!

I am a complete failure… at everything.

~Tuesday – My dorm sitting in bed

I am such an ass. I was alone in Potions with Tisiphone Torchwood. In my distress I blew up at her and asked her what she meant when she said those things about Lily. I still can't believe I did. I never do such things but I was so torn up about everything, I wasn't even thinking.

And she – to her credit, didn't even flinch. She just, apologized – to me. She apologized for coming off as sounding cruel, because she said, that's not what she meant at all. She told me she had nothing against Lily, just the system. Then she looked at me and said, something to the effect of, "No, I actually like her. I always thought of her as one of the few Gryfindors who isn't completely full of shit."

I instantly felt so - stupid and yet relaxed. I smiled. I almost laughed. Such a sweet thing to say after I spoke to her so coldly. I felt awful then for having done it. I apologized. She just shrugged it off and said, "Just figured you were having a bad day."

What! No one ever thinks of me in such ways. I don't get it. Why would she be nice to me? God what a weird day it has been. I was so upset I don't even remember most of it up until staying late after class. After she said that I was able to go back to work. Torchwood is all right. She likes Lily, and I certainly admire her work ethic. In fact, it just makes me want to work that much harder tomorrow. Tomorrow, I am going to master brewing The Draught of Peace as Torchwood has done. There, I have found purpose again. Drought of Peace and nothing else. So be it.

~Saturday – My Room

I've been working the Draught of Peace for days now. Through the difficulty I have found peace. Moreover, I am blessed with the addition of Apparition Lessons on Saturdays. The lessons help to further occupy my weekends, pointless and silly though they are. I practically mastered the act before I'd even come to school. I have wanted to do it for so long – legally. It really isn't all that difficult, at least not for me. So what if it is difficult for the others, must I really wait until I am 17? Make the Hufflepuffs and the Gryfindors wait. The rest of us have been ready for years…

~Wednesday Common Room – Spring reaches

Patricia Lisorra, Patricia Lisorra. And a Hufflepuff no less! I am so amazed by it. We all are. All of us in History of Magic, Binns is safe in his own other world not taking any notice as usual. She turns around to show everyone her new tattoo. Of course it is a Badger. Of course it is a tribute to her house, but I have to say it really is beautiful. Beautifully done that is.

We are all in love with it. Where did you get it we all ask - because we are all thinking the same thing. Did it hurt we all ask, as if that matters at all to any of us.

Hogsmeade. At Lucrecia's in Hogsmeade. Amazing.

~Potions Class – Sunlight its warm and smells of spring

I'm sitting in the back again besides Tristan Skylark and Tisiphone Torchwood. Slughorn is droning on. I cannot bear to listen to him any longer. We know what we're doing. I'd fake it, but I just don't have it in me anymore. I am past pretending to care now.

What is wrong with him? This book is so wrong, why does he keep praising it? I have written so many corrections in Advanced Potion Making by now that I have practically re-written it. I might as well! Why am I even in this class?

And now he moves in again to her. Yes always looking to her for back up – STOP flirting with her you disgusting old pervert. Leave her alone. Leave us alone. We don't need you, we don't need your useless criticism and we don't need this outdated old book -

That's it! That is it then! The book – _my_ book. This then will be the book I will write. Now I know my place in the world. I will re-write Advanced Potion Making with all of my corrections! That will be my contribution to the world, however small. There. I will do something that matters. I do have a reason to live!

~Saturday – Outside mid morning sunlight

It's so beautiful out and yet I fear spring has stirred up the terrible things within me... I can't get my mind out of the gutter.

Lily walks across the grass to me, barefoot in a sheer white dress than collapses into my arms. She does this again and again – in my mind. I have seen this so many times I can feel it. I _swear_ I can feel her.

I am so in love with any chance I have of escaping into these thoughts. Normally I only allow myself to think such things just before I fall asleep. It is my greatest comfort to fall asleep on my thoughts of her. Most nights I am so tired, I am unconscious before I can take my thoughts far enough for them to hurt. But now I cannot help but think them in daylight. I am so addicted to these dreams now – but they leave me so pained… I know I should stop but I can't help but to think of her and only her.

~Tuesday – Safe Outside beneath a tree in afternoon sunlight

By the lake, thinking of her. She comes to me – she's laughing. It is as if the last two years never happened and she and I are…. She falls into my arms. I press my face to hers and she kisses me gently and we just lie there in the grass. I hold her and I can feel her warmth and her softness… I feel so complete and at peace. She whispers to me, and I don't need anything at all.

She means everything to me…

Why, why why? Why must I feel the most terrible things inside? Lily if you won't hold me then just punch me hard in the chest and take the edge off the pain I feel…

~Wednesday – Night in my room

I cannot bear this much longer. She is all I can think of. I just want to hold her and curl my fingers through her long red hair. I want to be outside in this warm sunlight with her. I just want to hug her with every fiber of my being. I just want to _be_ with her. It's all I can think of. I swear if I could just hug her all of my suffering would be ended in an instant –

I have to stop thinking these things.

~Friday – My room – trying to work

I want to rip off my skin. I can' t _take_ it! This longing I feel - _raging _in my blood – this is far worse than what I felt in summer. This is _killing_ me. I do everything I can to shut off my brain. Shut down my thoughts and shut down my heart. I keep trying so fucking hard to concentrate and go back to my work –

-But how can I concentrate with those _dunderheads_ on the Quidditch team carrying on so fucking loud in the Common Room! Shut up - shut up - shut up! All they do is laugh and talk and _talk_. Why are they so fucking loud! I can't _stand_ it. At least I am alone in my room with no immediate voices near me to annoy me. At least I've brought work back with me. Finally I've had the presence of mind to take ingredients and bring them back to my room with me so I can't work properly on weekends. Slughorn will never notice anything going missing from his stores…

And I have my book of course, but then what do books know? What do any of these idiot Muggle-borns – even the Slytherins know about brewing potions?

They don't see it. They think it is a simple act of following instructions. None of them have any clue. The instructions are only a starting point. They don't see it. Brewing these solutions is an art. It takes sensitivity and intuition to understand what each individual recipe requires. Every, single one is different every single time. How can they not understand? Temperature, time of day, humidity lunar phase - all of these things affect the outcome in such profound ways. The others have no sense of subtlety.

One has to work _with_ each mixture – one has to sense what it needs. Instructions can only tell us so much. That is why they all fail. The art of potion making comes down to what you yourself bring to it. They all lack that creative ability.

Wave you wands if you will. Say your silly incantations – you will never understand magic as I do. And for God sakes stop talking so fucking loud!

~Sunday – Night - My room

Shut up shut up shut up! Mindless Quidditch fuckers are at it again! What is it about spring that has to make these jocks so rowdy? For Slytherins to behave in such ways... Its just embarrassing how stupid those idiots can make the rest of us look sometimes. I want to fucking rip out all of their fucking vocal cords!

Why can I not I have any peace at all? Even in my own room! Why can I not just be left alone with my thoughts of her? I cannot think of her now. I am not free to complete a fucking thought. Their voices abruptly disrupt my every thought and desecrate her sacred image…. It's so fucking _infuriating_. I am in a constant state of rage now. I am so on edge the slightest movement will set me off. Oh _God_I want to climb the walls, rip off my skin – split open my skull and scream.

~Monday – Night My room

I want to kill everyone. I fucking can't take anything anymore. Kill everyone or kill myself.

I can't take their voices. I can't take my feelings for her. I can't bear it any more. I'm human too all right! I want her - I want her in the most unholy fucking way just like everyone else! I am no better - Yes - I want to fuck her and I hate myself for it! I want to scream. I can't take it! I hate myself for how violently I want this and there is nothing I can do.

God knows I can no longer sit through a Potions lesson. I look at a desk full of fire burning beneath caldrons – the expensive glass and rare herbs and all I want to do is throw them off from the fucking desk with one wave of my arm and send them all crashing to the floor. I want to take Lily - carry her to my desk, lay her across it and ravish her on it. I want to be inside of her in the most terrible way! I can't stop thinking about it… and of course after _that_ vision plays itself out in my head - cannot get up from my desk any time soon.

I fucking _hate_ it. What if I were home? Would that I were in a room that was not shared with other people! Why can I not go into a room with out chance of a ghost or a portrait interrupting me – or God for - fucking -bid the infernal laughter of the Quidditch team! All of their fucking _mouths_. Were I anywhere else I could deal with this!

But I can't deal with it. I can't. Anywhere else but this fucking place and I could just do what everyone else does and be done with this problem in a matter of minutes. But no. I can't even fucking do that. I hate my fucking every thing! I want to kill everyone. Shut up!

SHUT UP!

~Friday – My Room

I spent the past four fucking days doing nothing but work. But I've not worked on potions. No, I have been working on the greatest fucking thing I have created all year – possibly ever. It took all of four days and now it is perfect. Muffliato! My bloody salvation. All I need do is cast it. All I hear then is white noise buzzing in my ears. I hear nothing of them… Nothing, save some summer insects is all. I am so at peace once it is cast. I don't even have to listen in class if I don't want to. I certainly don't need to. It's so wonderful.

I feel no let down at all after its perfection as I normally do. I am, in fact - slightly drunk with power over it. Of course I had my normal knee jerk reaction to run right and tell everyone – but obviously I will not let anyone know anything about this spell – for obvious reasons. And less obvious from what I have already learned from past mistakes, lest this be Levicorpus and Toenail Growth Hex all over again.

No I will not ever share my spells again. What I shared in the past to get people to like me, I know now will only be used against me. I will not give them anything. They deserve no further gifts from me. Now I am going to sit here – finally at peace and hear nothing.

~Thursday – Common Room

I screwed up today massively, again. The week started out well. I was doing great. I finally was able to focus on work. I had been brewing potions perfectly and doing really well on all of my assignments but I just can't get past thing gnawing feeling that something is wrong. Ever since about Tuesday I have this unfounded anxiety that is just killing me. My blessed fucking Muffliato helps, but I just, I'm slipping up. Literally.

Yesterday I didn't use quite enough hellebore so obviously, the Draught of Peace upon which I had been working, was not the shade of sea-blue turquoise for which I'd been aiming... Then today, my hands were shaking – thank God no one saw, but I messed up my Strengthening Solution. Because my hands were shaking I spilled several drops of Salamander blood and – it just didn't turn out right at all. Two days of work, fucked. Such a pathetic thing to fail at brewing. Slughorn didn't notice the imperfection. He thought it perfect, but then he doesn't know any better. I do, and I hate myself for it.

~Friday – History of Magic

Oh my God! I get it now I get it. It's Muffliato! Why am I casting spells on _myself_! I only do _that_ to punish myself. I hate myself for doing so when I cast _that_ spell. Why am I doing it again with Muffliato? Why should I suffer? I'm not the idiotic one mindlessly talking! That's it. I am spending the weekend devising a new spell. –And just for good measure, I'm re-working Muffliato to use against others as well.

~Wednesday – Defense Against the Dark Arts

Langlock done. Mastered. I love it. I love it.

It's great. And no one knows I'm doing it! It is so wonderful. I just shut their mouths for them. And they all deserve it. God I hate everyone. Thank God this term is almost over.

~The Last Day

I hate them, I hate them. I hate everyone, I hate myself -but I hate _them_ more. I hate myself for feeling this fear. I hate myself for trembling now – though it is more rage then fear… Still, what is _wrong_ with me?

How could I let them catch me off guard like that? The fuckers grabbed me and pulled in into an empty corridor. I was so close to losing _everything_…had Peeves not come when he had – I never thought I would owe that pain in the ass my undying gratitude….

And how in the name of God did they even get their hands on Veritaserum! I cannot believe Potter or Black to be the cleaver – it must have been Lupin. Pettigrew – he's too simple, but I'm sure he's the one who actually stole it! He does everyone's dirty work. Such a coward. He doesn't do it from courage, he does it because he fears to lose his friends – who are not his friends but who use him…

Oh God what if they had fucking done it? "Admit it! Admit it!" Potter shouts at me while he laughs himself stupid.

"Admit it!' Black keeps shouting and laughing in my face - "Admit to it you _coward_! Admit that you're in love with her!"

"_No._ I am _not_!"

No – and I don't care if they don't believe it. In love? That's nothing – dear God had they succeeded in forcing me to drink it – oh fuck - had they found out what I'd done with that horrible cutting spell – all my dark longings for her… what if they _knew_! What if _she_ knew! Dear God if they had succeeded – they would have – FUCK.

He _grabbed_ my hair – Black _grabbed_ my hair and Potter was seconds from chocking me with that vile fucking Veritaserum…. Oh Peeves, I can't believe it, he literally saved my life…

And those _fuckers_. How dare they! And they get away with it – I let them get away with it. The school let's them get away with it! I am powerless to stop them. Saved only by the mercy of a merciless Poltergeist.

Who would be so sick as to force someone to drink that awful shit? Who could be so _sick_ as to force another person divulge their deepest fucking secrets! Why would anyone even _want_ to do that? They nearly physically killed me in the Shrieking Shack. That wasn't enough? Must they now take my thoughts and humiliate me so completely once and for all? For what? What good could it possibly do? Ruin the rest of my life so they can laugh for a few moments? That is what they do after all. Torment me all these years for a few moments of distraction and amusement.

So help me God, when I get back next year I will make them suffer. Oh that I could… Revenge is a pointless fantasy. Had I the strength or the will, what good would that do?

Right now I have to do everything – _everything_ in my power to shield all of my thoughts from the outside world. First things first, I am putting innumerable hexes upon this book - even more so than I already have. Then I am going to master Occlumency as no wizard before me has ever managed to do. I swear upon the last peaceful moments spent with Lily I will become the most accomplished Occlumens of all time.

It is one thing for people to think I have some silly crush on her, but were they to know the extent of my secrets and my sick nature. Are things not bad enough for me in this wretched place as it is? These awful people. If they ever try again – they will not succeed. I am going to seal up my heart and no one will ever know….

At least now, I have plans for the summer. Three massive acts to bring me peace and shut them out forever, and no one will ever know of them. My life will be my own. I swear I will take back what this world has taken from me.


	3. Chapter 3

~Saturday – Train Home – Clouds

I'm still so angry about what happened. I hate how every time I am cornered by them - I am so helpless to do anything about it. I never know what to do.

I never learned how to defend myself. All I ever learned to do was break. That's what everyone wants. That's what _he_ always wants. Filthy violent arrogant Muggle with no fuse. Psychotic git. One minute everything is fine, the next it is it is an unending tirade.

I never do anything. It doesn't matter if I am in the room or not. If the television breaks, somehow that is my fault – despite the fact that I do not even watch television. Three quarters of an hour. I watched the clock. Just screams and screams and what am I supposed to do? There is nothing you can do – but break. They want to break you. They aren't satisfied until you cry. They yell at you for crying as well, but in truth is what they wanted all along. Television pulled out from the cabinet, wires strewn everywhere and in the end it was a wrongly flipped switch. Three quarters of a fucking hour. All I ever learned to do was break.

It is the same with Potter. Its not about me, its about him. Something is wrong, find someone else, break them. Do whatever it takes. If they fight back – continue until they give up. That is what all such tyrannical people ever want. Drop your head, play dead, and hope that it ends quickly.

And now I return to Spinners End. A whole summer of being afraid in my own bloody house. Of course I am grateful for the reprieve at Hogwarts… beyond grateful that he has no knowledge of Howlers - for I would certainly receive those on a daily basis for all of my failures. Every morning I would certainly be greeted in The Great hall by screaming red parchment for all that I have done wrong, and of course all that I have ruined with out having even been present in his house...

But now I return to it. Days spent walking about on eggshells and for what? Bullet proof plans, sneaking around, laying as low as possible and something will still go wrong. It's an old house. Doors won't fucking shut unless you pull them hard behind you. If I leave them open – he'll go mental. So I pulled it closed. That earned me a half an hour of screaming because I "slammed a door," and woke my mother. Since when does he care about her? And how does he know that even woke her? Surely if he was truly aiming to not wake her, screaming may not have been the best option. But that is the only option he ever chooses. "_What__ did __you __do!_ – _God__ damn __it_! Get out of my sight I don't want to look at you!_ Get__ out__ of__ my__ sight_ – you disgusting little _freak_. And stop crying you fucking coward – you are _worse_ then your _mother_! You do not _exist_." I wish that were so. I wish I didn't exist… for then I could have escaped…

"HELLO! Are you listening to me!"

"Yes."

"Don't yes me to death!"

"I'm sorry."

"No you're not sorry! Sorry isn't good enough! Don't _ever_ do that again!"

"OK."

"No it's not OK! Stop it! Stop crying you _pathetic_ little coward what the hell is wrong with you! You are going to be sorry – I store anger - This isn't over! I'm going to get you! _Do __you__ hear __me!_"

"_Get_" me? What am I supposed to do or say to that? There is no right answer. There is nothing to be done. No way out. No way to end tirades like that unless you break. So that is my only defense.

I don't know how to defend myself. I hate it. I have no idea how to be fearless - I wish I could learn... I wish I knew _how_ to learn to be fearless. I wish I knew who to look to. If I had my way, children would be taught such things... Children should be taught how to defend themselves, not be left alone to face such terror, as I was -as I am…

But what if I were to have children? Thank God I never will. What if I were to yell at them like that? What if I were to become such a tyrant? I don't know anything about raising children – dear God I would be tyrant! They say children with parents like that grow up to be the same way! Never. I will _never_ have children. I don't want anyone to grow up as I did. That cycle ends with me - I will _never_ have children. That curse will _die_ with _me_.

No. Not Snape. Prince. The Half-Blood Prince and forget the rest. And what of her? Why all those times, didn't she stop him? She woke me – woke me up – got me out of bed when I was sick with flu and brought me to him to be screamed at – because he told her to. Why couldn't she just say no to him? She just stood there by my side silent the whole time and never told him to stop. She knew it wasn't my fault. She knew I had nothing to do with it. I understand it, I know he's broken her too, but at least, why couldn't she just – help me?

Dark Arts? Was that her answer? Was that why she secretly gave me all of those Dark Arts books when I was younger? Did she give them to me so that I would learn to defend myself – or her? Was that her plan! Raise me to avenge her? I don't know I don't know… She never explained. She never said anything.

Still, they meant everything to me. I read those books when I was young – they were all I had. They were friends to me. Yes I know more Dark Magic now then most students and teachers – but I am not so fearless that I can cast such spells against others! I wasn't raised to fight! I was raised to break – to keep my head down and do exactly what they tell me – them, the teachers, Dumbledore and yes, Potter too.

Those books – why? It was all she ever gave me. Why didn't she at least explain! Did she give me them because she thought me already evil? Even as a little boy? Maybe I was… maybe she was right. Still – I was her son! I was her son – she was supposed to protect me! Why didn't she help me – why did she let him _do_ that to me! Why, couldn't she just…stand up for me?

And than finally – she does. A woman stands up for me for the first time and defends me from a tyrant, but not her. Lily. Lily had to come and get Potter away from me. I should have been grateful, in my heart I was – but I was just so mortified. Coward Severus needed the brave Lily Evans to defend him from the school bully. And what did I do – lash out at him! No like that horrible man – I took my anger out on her, the one I love most because didn't know what else to do. Knee jerk reaction and I…

God. It's not enough I don't know how to respond to aggression. I don't even know how to respond to kindness. I don't know what to do in the face of love. I – afraid as I am – push people away. The one good thing in my life and I ruined it.

I pushed her away.

And now my plan to learn Occlumency will only further push people away from me forever. So be it. Good then that I did. Good than that I cannot further hurt her. I was not meant to love. I will wall up my heart forever. So. Be it.

I will find my courage. I'll lay low as usual the first few days and then I am going to do it. I'm not afraid, not very afraid anyway. I've been Disapparating since the third year. No one knows - they think its her. She barely even does magic anymore. If they ever knew it was me…

June

All the way back from Hogsmeade and the feeling still has not left me. I feel like I'm floating. I walk and yet my feet are not on the ground. I still feel so electrified.

It didn't hurt. It felt so unreal. I _swear_ I left my body. My eyes, seemed blinded out for a few moments, everything was just – light.. Everything around me became fuzzy, my eyes flooded with blinding white light. I just lay there, lighting shocks - a constant flow of electricity into my arm. It was incredible.

It didn't hurt at all. It felt…religious. This I knew was forever, and it didn't frighten me. As I lay there weightless, I felt somehow out of time but in present in all time. I was not thinking or feeling and yet I was completely conscious. There, in that sacred space I swore myself forever to her. She may never so much as look toward me again, but that no longer matters. I am sworn forever to her, and that is everything to me.

And here I am, now, back in this place. No one knows I snuck out. No one knows I Disapparated to Hogsmeade and back! Such a beautiful night, to be there in summer… I've only been there in snow or the tease of pre-spring cold March weather. The stars were on fire, the air smelled of grass and trees and all around me this peaceful buzz of crickets and, just – _life_. Even now I can still feel it. The night has just about ended; daylight is almost on the horizon. Black sky slowly seems to be turning dark blue. I am still on fire – one of three acts accomplished! I cannot help but think about what I've done and smile!

I snuck out! I did it! I actually _did_ it! I feel so alive and wonderful I can't stand it. It was so bad – so wrong and I _love_ it. It is the greatest thing I have ever done. Dear God if anyone knew – but that's just it – they won't ever know! I wear long sleeves all summer long…

But there is something else. I have been bursting of it ever since I was lying there… But before I try - I had to write all that has happened because I am so happy and I don't want to ever forget how I feel.

But it came to me, as I lay there full of light. Now – I just have to see if I am right.

- I did it! I can't believe it – I'm tearing up still and it's been an hour. Sun just rises now; I'm still catching my breath from it! I produced a Patronus! I conjured full-fledged Patronus. I understand it so fully now. I thought it would be the most difficult spell I would ever have to master – but it wasn't at all! Once I understood it, it was as simple as breathing. I thought it would be so hard! I just needed to see, and I see now. I have always had it in me.

It's her! It is the love of her – what I feel for her and how she makes me feel. The light that so blinded me last night – it was still in me. I went to the river, lost in the tall grass I raised my wand spoke the incantation and the light surrounded my entire body. I felt it come from within me. The light took over everything and blinded me again. There was this sudden flash – all was white light – sound was suspended and stopped, it was as if time itself froze for a moment.

Then as quickly as it came – the flash faded. Blinding white light became silvery blue. Soft light - the silence of snowfall and she appeared. The Silver Doe, just as Lily's Silver Doe, but her – my doe, she looked at me with Lily's eyes. I see now that I have always had it in me - for all that is good in me, is her…

The sunrises. The breeze comes now to caresses the tall grass around me. Day comes now. Apparition, Patronus charms. What the ministry must assume my Mum was doing all night I do not know. It's rather funny to think on it. I should go home now. I should sleep. I will, and when I wake up again, I will do nothing but work to master Occlumency.

Mid July

Summer holidays have reached their midway point. I feel really solid now. I feel as though, I own my life in a way, or at least I am starting to. I smile every time I think of what I have done. And as for Occlumency, I have achieved all that had I wanted to already.

I still feel I can improve, there is no reason why I should not continue to work on my Occlumency skills, but for now I know I have more then mastered what books can teach me. I have read everything. And I mean _everything_. I have spent the summer doing little else. I have worked with potions and the like only to keep my hand in it. I am confident enough in that. I have done considerable work with Legilimency as well, I will master it only for the sake of mastering it, but honestly what reason will I ever want to read another's mind? It only serves me to block others out of mine. So I will master Legilimency in the time remaining, but I will continue my work with Occlumency. As with everything, I know I can do better beyond what I have learned... Books can only teach us so much.

~Return The Train. Pouring

The last year. Here I am.

Not even at the school, and already it has begun. The train was full of the chattering. Lilly and Potter, both together made Head Girl and Head Boy.

Fuck Me.

I am happy – for her. She is the greatest witch in the school. Of course she more than deserves this honor. She is kind and good-natured and looks after her house like a big sister. As head girl she will excel and do good with her power. But Potter.

What will he do with his rank, save for abuse his power and flaunt it in the face of others? He is a bully and a hack, who never even studies or works hard at all. He gets his way by charming the teachers and by no other means. And for all I slaved these past years, I barely even made the Slug Club. I was certainly never going to be made a Prefect. How many others were passed up? How many hard working, brilliant minds were overlooked because they were not so well liked as he? Where is the justice?

There is no justice. I do not blame this school. As much as I hate it, I cannot truly hate the closest thing I have to a home. True, there is no justice here, but I am not so naïve as to blame Hogwarts. There is no justice anywhere.

But, now that it is my last year - I am afraid. It is not the fear of what will happen this year – but of what will happen next. For now however, I just feel – ready. I am my own now. No one can touch me.

I am beyond proficient in Occlumency now. I have built such walls around my head and my heart…

Do it. Let Potter or anyone try to get inside my head. Go on, try. I have no fear at all. Veritaserum, Legilimens or anything else. No one will ever get to me – ever.

~Tuesday – History of Magic. Sunny, still warm

Second day of classes. I made it a whole day. But today, I saw her. I didn't even see her face, just her hair from behind. And yet even that brief glimpse, pierced my heart like a spike of ice. That cold shot through me and my whole body went dead. I don't even feel joy at the sight of her now. I feel sick and guilty for looking at her. I do feel sick. Just sick and bad… What am I doing?

Dear God, what they say about me. What Potter, Black and Lupin tried to force me to admit. It's true. I am strange, and a freak. I am a sick person. Oh Lily, I'm so sorry for what I am.

~Thursday – The Great Hall, rain

She shot me the dirtiest look just now. She doesn't know of course. She cannot know what I did over the summer holidays, no one in the school could possibly know… No, she does not look at me with suspicion - I wish it were that simple. That would hurt less. She looks down at me. Why can't she just stab me! Why must she look down upon me as if I am some despicable foul creature that only Hagrid could love!

So she looks down upon me, she has for over a year now. I should be used to it. But I'm not. It hurts so much more now…

Because, now she looks down at me from over Potter's shoulder. There she sits beside Lupin and Black who have tried to destroy me on every level. There she sits with those who – I swear if they hurt her, I will destroy. I feel so angry, I feel so hurt. So many feelings at once it is had to think…

Why does she have to look at me like that? I know I'm ugly. I know I am sick. I didn't used to be... at least not so much as I am now. Everyone hates me and looks down on me. Except her, or rather, how she used to see me. Before all this, she was the only one who didn't look at me with contempt.

I hate how she sees me now.

~Monday Defense Against – Morning. Really dark out still

I sat near Avery, Wilkes, Mulciber, Rosier, and Avery's cousin, Torchwood. They were laughing. I always block everyone out now. Weather I use Langlock, Muffliato or not, I never hear a word anyone says anymore – until they said _that_ word.

"_Lily_."

I whipped my head around so fast but only Torchwood seemed to notice. They were laughing – about how ridiculous it is that such a nice girl was hanging around, in Mulciber's exact words - "such a pathetic group of meatheads". At that I burst out laughing. I don't even know where it came from, but I just started laughing and couldn't stop. Now that I think of it I was just so relieved to hear someone else say it. And I guess I just needed to release that. Because it is _so_ridiculous!

And they- they just started laughing that much harder! "Seriously Snape," Wilkes said, "you used to be friends with her – why is she falling for such an overt womanizer! It's just so wrong!"

Evan Rosier – that blundering _Evan __Rosier_ even said – "After what he did to Mary Macdonald and Asteria Vitrue you think Lily Evans would know better! That situation is going to end - badly before it even gets started!"

We were all laughing – and – even now I know it is wrong to laugh about them, but it just felt _so_ good to laugh. I haven't laughed in forever. And that others see how _wrong_ it is for her to be with him… God I feel as if an immense weight has lifted off me. It's not just me! It's not just me hating this situation out of jealousy!

And _them_. Those four guys. God I haven't been around them in forever. It felt so good to be with them. I didn't realize how much I missed them… I didn't think they had even noticed my absence. I certainly didn't notice theirs until now. They _see_ things, and they're not afraid to say them. Dear god let Rosier be right – please let it end before it even starts!


	4. Chapter 4

~Tuesday – Potions Sunlight

They waited for me! They _waited_ – for _me_! No one has ever waited for me before – but Avery, Rosier, Mulciber, Torchwood and Wilkes- waited for me! I left my room and there they all were, standing together in the Common Room. They all looked up when they saw me. "Snape," – Avery called up to me, "We were waiting for you, come to breakfast with us." He was smiling. He _meant_ it.

I had breakfast with them. We just laughed and laughed. I had so much fun I haven't laughed or felt so alive since that night over the summer up in Hogsmeade. And before that night I literally I cannot even remember. I don't think I have felt so – normal or _human_ since my fifth year before everything happened….

It was such a great morning, and I just had to write that down. I have to – I have to remember that it is possible to be a normal person. Even if just for an hour or so, there is life still.

~Saturday Night – My Room

Always she changes everything…

Avery and the others wanted to go to the Quidditch Match. I only went because I wanted to spent time with them. I could care less about Quidditch. Besides, do I really need to see Potter show off in front of everyone? But then I thought about it. Slytherin was set to play Gryffindor. Vrennon Stanhope the new Slytherin Seeker is so damn good. Everyone thought we had a good chance of winning. Oh if Potter could be defeated by a second year Slytherin I would die a happy boy – but - as we all know, God hates me.

Potter struts out onto the fucking field – arrogant as ever. As usual he has to do something showy before he mounts his broom. This time, he walked on his hands. It infuriates me every time. Sometimes I just want to hex his fucking broom! I know a good hex for it too, and I'd be good at it… Unfortunately my cruelty has only allowed for me to cast Toe-Nail Growth Hex on him a few times in class. I suppose I should be grateful I that cannot stoop to his level, but I am not. I still shamefully wish for his fearless nature at times…

No. Fuck Potter.

FUCK Potter. Its always only about him! He cannot even be part of his team and carry them to a swift victory. No. He just has to prove to everyone just how fucking good he is at flying.

As usual, Potter could have caught the Snitch several times over. As usual he was showing off. Several times he could have caught the Snitch but he just kept letting it go on purpose to make his win that much more dramatic. Always he has to milk it for all its worth. I thought I was the only one to notice this stupidity. It has cost him the game before – but everyone pretended not to notice. But finally – _finally_ – the entire Slytherin section of the crowd picked up on it! We all laughed - together – at him.

Someone yelled out "Oh look Potter is too good to play Quidditch now! Even catching the damn Snitch is beneath him!"

Someone else screamed right back – "Oh well God forbid he catches it, then the game will end and with it the all the attention he now has!"

Everyone screamed with laughter!

Oh God it was the single greatest feeling I have had in _months_. Finally, though he did not know it the tables were turned. It was so great to laugh at _him_ - with _everyone_ like that! The way we all made jokes, together- I _with_ them… It was the first time in my life I have actually felt I was a part of Slytherin House. I _finally _understood after all these years - how my house could be my _family_. This terrible to write but - I actually felt warm and fuzzy. Horrible, but true - it was as if the entire house of Slytherin was giving me a hug. It was ridiculous how good I felt. Then I looked over and saw her.

I froze instantly. She was glaring at me. My entire body shut down and went ice cold at the daggers she was shooting me through her eyes. Had she been near enough to speak to me, but that did not matter. The look in her eyes said everything. Seconds later Potter caught the Snitch. Of course he would. Of course in that instant, he would.

It had been such a good morning. For the rest of the day I have been racked with guilt. She knows now that I am hanging out with the people she despises even more then she despise me. The very people I had sworn to stay away from for the sake of her. Evil she calls them. Once again, in my weakness of will, I have failed her... And now she knows it. I feel so conflicted and torn. I want so much to be good in her eyes, but I want to be a part of something as well. What should I do?

Oh this day… it started out with such promise... I almost felt accepted – I was for a moment – and in the next moment it was all over. This day, which started out with such promise has been such an upsetting, bad day. I cannot be happy. I cannot feel a part of my house. I cannot be with her, and we cannot even win the stupid Quidditch game – because of him. I hate him. I hate everything.

There is one thing good I can take from this day, which was so cruelly stolen from me. It is the one thing I have of this day – but have it I do - and no one can ever take from me. The perverse joy of it I will not share for it is mine and mine alone. When he caught that fucking Snitch, she was not looking at him. She was looking at me.

~Tuesday.

I don't feel anything. I am a wall with no emotion and I feel nothing. I see and I remain silent. I don't change the expression on my face for I am made of stone. Everyone feels the need to tell me and yet, I do not blink at the revelation.

Even upon the moment of the actual revelation, my face did not register a thing. I did not even draw breath, for in my heart, somehow, I already knew.

They are officially dating each other. It's serious. Avery told me. And though I did not let on a thing - a wave of blackness washed over me. For an instant, I thought I would drown in the torrent. My heart went dead cold. My chest constricted – crushed as if by iron bars – Disapparation closing in. In fact I did not draw breath, for that instant – I could not. But in that instant – as if by some miracle, I was not sucked under by waves of despair. My heart did not shatter at the revelation, but by some grace of God or magic, my heart turned to stone. My entire body turned to stone. I did not move, register, or even feel at thing. And so I am blessed.

I am petrified into perfection and no Draught of Mandrake can bring me back.

~Friday – Astronomy Class – Starless Sky

I have gotten so good at faking it for everyone that I have begun to believe it myself. Indeed I have believed these three days myself to truly be apathetic to the situation. My exterior will not crack, and yet already inside me the fragile seams holding me together begin to tear and threaten to separate completely. And as my stony insides begin to dissolve into flesh, tissue and blood, I begin to bleed out internally. I will drown in this before long. My lungs will fill with fluid and I _will_ drown. Already breathing becomes harder…

But my exterior will not crack and no one will ever know.

~Saturday Night – Common Room

With Wilkes, Avery, Evan, Mulciber and Torchwood in the Common Room. Still awake. Fighting sleep. Not tired I tell myself. Blink harder Severus. Must stay awake.

Avery and the others sit discussing things. I sit with them. I'm just sitting here. I'm just listening. I must not think. I can only pay attention to what they say to each other. Must not think on other things – must focus on them…

Avery asks Torchwood why she transfigures her wand into a riding crop all the time. She says she misses riding. She had a horse at home. She says something about riding her horses… I'm losing it I hear nonsense in her speech for she said something just now that sounded like "Thes Trall."

"They Strall?" Get it together Severus! There, she speaks again. She keeps going on about horses. She complains about Quidditch. I love it. She says, it is only Quidditch… Hogwarts has no equestrian sports, just as they have no art or dancing – and how unfair that is...

She has said before how much she misses art, and dancing such. She says again now - how much she misses riding. She _means_ it. Still it's too easy. Too many jokes to be made about a woman wielding a riding crop... Now they are all having a go at her, not to be mean, just to laugh, she is laughing too - joining in on the jokes. I'd laugh but I can't. Must remain still must not move or else...

I now believe my maintaining this façade of apathy to be the only thing holding me together. It is taking far more strength now than I ever thought possible. Ever since yesterday in Charms class I have felt this anxiety growing within me. I am ritualistic and superstitious to a fault now. It is as if one false move and everything will come crashing down.

It will.

Never before have I wanted so much to be around the others. I have always wanted to shut everyone out, hide in my room and –

Now I need them. If they leave me I will have nothing to fake, I will be alone in my thoughts and I cannot be alone for I fear the consequences. I am even grateful for Donovan Moore's presence beside me in our room. I refuse to go to bed now unless I know he or someone else is in the room. I don't sleep much either. I pace the Common Room reading after most people have left. The less I sleep the less likely I am to dream or to lay awake in bed when my thoughts become so venerable. When the Common Room is near empty, then - and only then do I sleep...

I am so tired now. So tired I begin to see things moving on the walls. It's not the ghosts - it's not the paintings or some prank hex. I am just living a half-life now. Never asleep – but mercifully never fully awake. Half alive.

Half alive – hiding in Slytherin – skipping certain classes – staying away from The Great Hall, never did eat much anyway. Can't. Evan speaks - everything is coming though now in non-sequiturs. I can no longer follow conversations.

Torchwood just asked me what I was staring at. Blurted out "I never noticed the smaller serpent carved below the large one on the mantle piece." She laughed. It's true though; I _have_ never noticed the thing. I hope it is real and not a trick of my mind. Must stop writing. Must not divide my attentions, follow conversation. I must maintain.

~Sunday Night – 

Slept for a few hours... Evidently I passed out on the leather sofa in the Common Room for a few hours before Donovan finally woke me. He said he wanted to let me sleep as long as possible but that the Quidditch teams was about to come back from practice… He understands these things.

I feel really off right now. It's almost dark out. I'm getting scared. I don't want to go to class tomorrow. I don't want to leave the sanctity of our Common Room. I don't want to because if I don't see it I can continue to deny the thing.

~Monday Afternoon – Common Room

Long hair has its merits. I walk with my head down. With my sight obscured by it I do not see. I do not want to walk with my head down much longer. Why should I feel this fear? I am tired of walking around avoiding the cracks. Why deny what I already know to be true? I have foreseen this since my fifth year after all. I am cursed, and he is blessed to have everything. I hate everything. Weather I see it or do not, it is still happening. Tomorrow, I will force myself to see.

Better I should have the choice than to have it forced upon me. I keep that choice. I keep that one small bit of power. The sight will surely destroy me, but I will choose the moment of my destruction. And when I see it, I will see to it, that no one can see me when I finally do break.

God help me. Tomorrow, I die.

~Thursday -

Three days. I almost did it. I came so close just now to unleashing my terrible spell upon myself. Something powerful seized me from within. I don't know where this strength came from – but something stayed my hands and I stopped.

Such power and control gripped me. Self-destruction gives way in seconds to self-preservation. I will not tear open my own flesh any longer. I won't do it.

Indeed for the briefest of moments I believed my hesitation to be fear - the fear that I would fail, that my spell would fail would fail me. I feared my conviction would fail me - and that – is when I finally understood. I understand everything now. It is my conviction I hesitate!

I know why I have failed so many times in the past. I hesitate. I didn't always _mean_ it.

I meant it those first few times. I _meant_ it and that is why it tore me open with such horrific force. My conviction failed me later when I began to fight back against my feelings. In order to unleash the full potential of any spell – one to _mean_ it. _That_ spell will not work because I cannot use it against myself anymore. It is just as it was with Muffliato to Langlock! Why did I not see it until now! I curse myself but not those who have brought me to this suffering!

This is not a spell to be used on myself as punishment my sins. This spell is for enemies. There. There is my new purpose in perfecting my spell. I am going to work to understand and perfect this one - so help me God - if that is all I do!

Potter is a curse upon her - All four of them are accidents waiting to happen! If he hurts her – if he breaks her heart – if he uses her as he did Mary Macdonald or Susan Constantia - if he lets her anywhere near Lupin in transformation – I will be ready. I swear if it comes to it – God help me I will hex them all.

~Wednesday – Common Room Dark Night – moonless

I am so much closer to understanding the spell now. I am calm in that. I am calm in general.

Everyone is sitting around me still. Not long ago - someone brought it up. They all laughed and about it. It was the most wonderful thing to hear – they all said, "Two months". All of them said it with out first discussing prior. "Lily and Potter will not last more than two months." That they all agree makes it that much more real.

It will not last. She is just confused. She just has a lot on her mind and she will come around. I will continue to perfect my spell and its counter. I will work hard and when she comes back around, I will be ready and waiting for her. Maybe she could even come to see in Avery what I see. For how horrid are The Dark Arts of Slytherins when compared to the bullying of Gryfindors? Our hexes will at least wear off. Our spells can all be countered. There is no remedy for the cruelty they inflict upon us.

~Friday – Defense Against the Dark Arts

She is -

But I know the incantation now. I know its _name_. I spent so much time committing the act in a trance. I lacked the presence of mind to understand what, or if I even spoke. But I finally spoke the spell's name properly. No longer a thoughtless reaction. Now I do not stumble over the words to act and counter act. I know them as I know my own name to be The Half-Blood Prince. I think of the spell as my beloved, but accursed offspring. She is my daughter sent from heaven and hell to protect us all.

I now write the name of the spell over and over. It gives me strength. To see it written calms me. I write it to be used against enemies. I write this like a child punished with lines, for I am... I am punished to write this until I understand. I will not use it against myself. I will not. She is – Lily is –

But I won't cut my arms. I feel the pain worse now than ever before as I stare at her as she is - as she is but I cannot do it. It is meant for my enemies.

Even as she is holding his hand under the desk in class - even as she looks at him so sweetly that I can no longer deny this to myself as just some silly infatuation that is his alone. That she is only under some spell of his, but I know genuine love when I see it. Look away Severus. Look away Half-Blood Prince…

Sectumsempra… my salvation in destruction.


	5. Chapter 5

~Monday – _Well __Its__ Tuesday __now!_ Still nighttime not yet dawn – my room -

So focused I was. I knew my place and I knew my purpose as I sat reading in the Common Room. Avery, Mulciber, Evan, Wilkes and Torchwood came to me – where I sat. "We were looking for you," Avery says, "We've been planning to sneak out and head for Hogsmeade."

"I can't." I said, in this knee jerk reaction. I hadn't even thought of it, but of course I said no. How can I sneak out – and go to Hogsmeade! Honestly. Such things cannot be done, so I told them the truth, I had to study. I did. I want to master another spell now that I have my salvation, Sectumsempra.

Evan was the first to protest. They all quickly join him – "Just come," they say, "You can't really have to study that much." They were right of course. I had already read that book before. Still, I knew there was more I could learn from it. How do you tell people you're just not the kind of person who can just, go out? I certainly am not the kind of person who can be easy going and fun. I was about to create a stronger excuse, and then she spoke.

Tisiphone spoke these exact words – "Sev, just come with us! We want you to come – it will be fun – just come!"

Sev.

Sev. – She called me _Sev!_ At the sound of that name through her voice my whole body – my petrified body made of stone - instantly felt weak – I'd become flesh and blood. I literally felt life in my body again. She called me Sev – not Snape – not that horrid name – she called me _Sev_.

"Yes."

Before she could finish speaking I looked at her without even thinking and said, "Yes".

She called me SEV.

That's what she called me! No one else - up until that very moment - has ever called me Sev! Only Lily before her has ever called me by that name up. She called me Sev. They asked me to go with them. No one ever asks me to do go anywhere. How could I say no? Of course I instantly believed it to be a trick - that it would be The Shrieking Shack all over again. Of course I was terrified of what would happen were we caught. But I wanted so much to go with them. This is what I've _always_ wanted.

So we left! We left not only the castle but the _grounds!_ It was an amazing night! I honestly can't believe I had so much fun with them.

I'm writing this smiling. I can't believe it - it was _so_ great! We weren't even in Hogsmeade long. That's what's so funny. Most of the night was just us sneaking out. We climbed out a window Avery had bewitched to remove any protective spells meant to keep us in. He's _good_. I need to learn more practical spells like that! We snuck out – past the green houses, past the Hagrid's and out onto the road. It was such a rush of adrenline. We just kept giggling – but we couldn't giggle because we didn't want to get caught – which only made everything that much funnier! Everything was funny! Total – you had to be there moment. I've never really been able to say that until now!

So many silly jokes we made up! We made up so many jokes only _we_ get now! I know inside jokes – I am a part of inside jokes! I am not the joke! God, that was the greatest walk. It was so much fun. By the time we got to Hogsmeade – it was so late we only wandered around laughing for about twenty minutes – but who cares? We did it! And we snuck back in just as easily as when we had snuck out. We were still trying just as hard not to laugh too!

I can't believe that just happened! If I had known this morning when I was so sad in Charms – God was that even this morning! That seems like a week ago! I can't stand how incredible this is! We have to wake up for class in forty-five minutes! Obviously I'm not sleeping. My heart is still racing from it! I can't wait to go to class and see them again! I'm going to my window. I'm up, I might as well watch the sunrise – I can't believe this is actually my life!

~Tuesday Morning – History of Magic Class -

This is so great! I'm not even tired. I mean – I know I didn't sleep because I have that hollow funny weak feeling – but I'm kind of in love with that shaky feeling now because its mixed with adrenaline still! We're all shooting each other looks. We just can't look at each other with out smiling. Tisiphone keeps laughing when I look at her! I can't help but smile. I can't look to my left at Evan of I will die laughing; I can feel him looking at me already about to crack up.

And the _others_ – they look at me. The others look at _us_. Its as if they know! But they can't read my mind! Of that I'm sure. Fuck they don't even know about Legilimens or Occlumency enough to even attempt it – forget that I'm so damn good at it. Everything is funny!

Wow. Everyone looks at me – everyone has stared at me in class before – but not like this. I'm used to feeling terrible and embarrassed as they snicker and laugh at me over some joke I am not even privy to. But this time – they look at me with intimidation – they know there is something we know that they do not. We are the funny ones now. The joke is on them now because we had fun last night and they slept through it.

This is so unbelievable. I never imagined I could feel this way – over them. I love it. I am so beyond grateful for this feeling. I don't think Avery, Evan, Tisiphone, Wilkes of Mulciber could ever understand what they have done for me. I could never tell them of courses – for then they would think that weird. But for now – I'm just a normal person!

~Friday – Common Room

They were snogging in front of everyone. In front of _everyone_! It was so fucking disgusting. And what's worse – its just so out of fucking character – how sick – the Lily I knew would _never_ do such a thing. She was far too modest to even think of doing such a thing. It's _him_! He's done this to her – he's turned her into someone else. It's his all his fucking fault.

It's not her. It's not her. She is dead to me. That's _not __her_.

It isn't you. That's not you doing that, for you would never. You would never make such a sick display like that. She isn't her. She died. She is gone. My Lily died – and this one – is the fiend. This trick of transfiguration or Polyjuice has come to haunt us all.

No – that is not her. She remains now only in me. She remains in my memory in the eternal ache in my heart, memorialized forever in my flesh. I will remember you, my love, as you were – not as this fiend. I know she isn't you.

~Sunday – Common Room

You _bitch_. Again. _Again_ they go at it. Like fucking animals in The Great Hall. Is that what this has come to? Christ - can I now not go into any open area of the school that is not the Slytherin Dorm! And it's not even me – its _everyone_. Everyone looks over at them and makes that face like they've smelled something putrid. Everyone looks at them and says – "gross" – "ew!" – "what the hell!"

Honestly – who do they think they are! It's so disrespectful! Who does that! No! Not even the biggest gits on the Gryffindor Quidditch team would do _that_ in public. I'm so fucking mad. What has he turned her into? Having to watch this is just so infuriating! And yet - as much as I want to say he has her under some spell – that explanation is getting harder to believe with each day that passes...

Honestly - was my crime _really_ so terrible? I called her one bad name _once_ – then apologized immediately there after. She said horrible things to me that day. And he – every day before and after that… He has called so many people – terrible, cruel awful names and has never _once_ displayed any sign of remorse _– __ever_. He and his friends almost _killed_ me in the Shrieking Shack. He tried to rob me of my innermost fucking secrets. They have tormented me and anyone else they feel like having a go at – and for what! So they can have a few laughs!

All I ever did was a few dark spells – which weren't even that dark. Harmless pranks in comparison. All I did was hang out with people she did not like. They play pranks but they keep it mostly to themselves. At least they want me around. They do want me around. They too think these sickening – disgusting acts done in such a public places – completely reprehensible. I am not alone in this.

I am not alone at all. I am so angry with myself for thinking she would just come back to me if only I were to work hard. She is never coming back. All those times last year I tried so hard to impress her. All my pointless attempts at _Virtue_. All those times I avoided people she did not like when I could have been _with__ people_ instead of suffering empty endless loneliness!. They are the only people who've ever wanted me around! I practically killed myself and for what! She is never coming back. How stupid of me to act that way. No – I am happy that I managed to master all those spells and potions. Of that I am glad, so I will not think last year a total waste. It was good. I am truly proud of what I have accomplished.

But now? Fuck it. I will not be a slave to her memory. I will not watch her defile herself like this. I am turning my back on her. I am turning my back on this nightmare. I am going to be brave and ask Evan what he's doing tonight. I am not studying.

~Saturday – The Great Hall

Evan. Even to speak to Evan sometimes is tricky, when his first name so closely resembles her last. And yet, I managed to ask him if he had plans for the evening. Practically inviting myself to spend time with people is not something I have ever imagined myself doing. I half expected him to snap at me and ask me why I was asking him such a thing.

But he actually said – "I'm glad you asked." He said that, and than he explained that he and the others were planning to sneak out again. He wanted me to come. I died.

So there we were once again, slipping silently out the window… or as silently as we could while bursting out into fits of laughter. Someone always gets a case of the giggles, and that case always becomes contagious.

There we were once again in Hogsmeade breaking dozens of rules and loving every second of it. We actually made it into the village this time for more then a few minutes. We walked through the dimly lantern lit streets, ducked through the alleys and into shops. We entered one shop, split up, and searched aimlessly through the shelves. Down a dark aisle, I came upon Evan.

We both looked down at a tray of silver rings, dozens of them scattered rather aimlessly. There were four different kinds in the messy piles, some had birds on them, some badgers, other griffins, but the best ones of course were the serpents.

It wasn't just that it was our house. They were different. The serpents _were_ the rings. Its silver body was meant to wrap around ones finger, as its tail was held in the serpent's mouth. "I love them," I said to Evan.

At that, he suddenly bursts into a fit of giggles. I laughed at him, I couldn't help it. "Evan – what the hell's wrong with you!" I asked.

He tells me to be quiet. "Keep a look out for me Severus," he whispers to me through muffled laughter.

Barely a whisper back through my only laughter I spat - "Keep a look out – what the fuck Evan?" He only laughed and shh-ed me as I turned to look around for what I was meant to be looking out for. The dork – all I could see was the others scattered about the dusty shelves and bins. I turned back around to Evan just as he bumped into me. He grabbed my armed before I knew what was happening and started dragging me out of the shop while giggling like a maniac! The others saw this and quickly followed us out the door. We ran to the nearest dark alley – barely controlling our laughter - though no one but Evan knew for sure what the hell we were even laughing at.

Into the dark alley, Evan opened his hand. In his black leather glove gleamed six silver serpent rings. One for each of us. He _stole_ them!

"_Evan __you __little__ shit!__"_ We all yelled at him and laughed for a long time. It was so funny! And yet, the whole thing as stupid and hysterical as it was… It made me feel so warm and good inside – though I did not dare let this on... But how could I not feel that way? There was one for each of us. I was _one_ of them. All of us now share the same rings, all ill gotten in the same way from the same person on the same night for one purpose. I feel finally I am a part of something real and permanent.

We're all wearing the rings now. I love my serpent ring so much. I look down at it constantly – I can't believe its mine! I've never had something so wonderful in my whole life – or so expensive!

~Thursday - Herbology

I normally don't write in Herbology, too obvious. I just had to write. I just had to say that we have all been wearing our rings for almost a week now and it makes me so happy. We have plans to sneak out again tomorrow night. I can't wait.

~Monday - Potions

We snuck out again. The same great things happened. Same laughter. Too tired to write it all. This time Evan stole books. Dark Arts books we only have in the Restricted Section. I'm happy to have a new book - just…I'm so tired. We've been up late all these nights. Normally a new book – especially one like this and I'd be married to it….

I have barely even looked through it. I am afraid. I am losing myself. I love spending time with them, but I am afraid I am forgetting my true love. Lily is the most meaningful thing in my life. Its hard, but I look at them – I look at him, and I want to see what the rest of the school sees. I think I can see it. I think I can see it now.

Even if he is not quite as good as they all say – he is in fact a good guy. He can make her happy. I never could – how could I? I wasn't meant to love anyone. I wouldn't know what to do with her. I have no idea how to be in a relationship with someone. How could I marry her? He could do what I cannot. I'm not good enough for her.

There. In my jealously – I just saw him as a bad person. I was wrong. He has changed and he is a good person. I was wrong and everyone else is right. I keep telling myself everyone else is right…

~Wednesday Potions Class

Sitting at my desk working. Or at least I'm pretending to work. I've brewed this shit so many times before… I really don't even care. All I want to do is go back to my room. I know all of this material. I've written a book on it all by now... all be it in margins… Just let me go home to my dorm.

I just wrote that my dorm is my home. I did just write that because it is true. Home. I have only a few months more here in the dorms and then I will leave Hogwarts. Where then will I go? I'll get work, but – what's the point? What is the point of any of this? Why do I bother?

I can see my future alone empty and meaningless. I can see hers full of light and joy. I just don't understand it. I love her _so_ much. How could I ever love someone else that much? I just don't understand how mutual love can exist. You love someone that much – what are the odds that person could love you back in the same way? Not that anyone else would ever love me – but what if they did? I wouldn't love them back and thus the cycle would continue. I don't understand anything at all.

~Thursday Common Room

I cried last night after everyone went to sleep. I've held it back so long – but last night snuck out to the woods and I just sobbed. Pathetic. Once I started, I couldn't stop crying. I could have carried on all night, but I managed to get hold of myself and stopped sobbing. I hung my hair in my face and made my way back to my room.

I can't keep lying to myself. This is not so one sided. How can she do this to me? Doesn't she remember everything we used to do as children? How close we were – how could she just _forget_ that? And if she can so easily forget, why then must I remember so painfully the life we used to have? I want to believe he is the better man… despite what I see that she doesn't. I can't…. I'll keep lying to myself until I believe.

~Saturday The Great Hall

She is holding his hand so sweetly and he holds her back, though his grip far more possessive than hers. She looks at him. I am close enough to hear her say how much she loves him… And although cold steel pierces my heart, I nearly smile. She means it.

She is happy. I see the way she looks at him, and she means it. I know, because that is how I look at her. I see the truth now. It hurts more then I could ever express but I have no choice, it must be done…

I have to let her go.

~Sunday Night – My room

I feel a little better today. I spent most of the day in the Common Room with Avery, Evan and the others. We laughed. I feel a little better.

~Tuesday – Late afternoon – My room

Everything was normal! This was supposed to be a normal day! Why? Why is this happening! I know what I've been thinking these past few days - and I would un-think it but – why now? Why is fate fucking with me!

Tisiphone Torchwood – we were sitting in class bored as usual. Then out of nowhere – she turned to me – she smiled – and she _touched_ my arm_!__She __handed __me __a__note!_ I didn't know what to do. I took it and I quickly looked away. I hid the note and made it seem as if I didn't want us to get caught...

That was hours ago in Herbology – I am still too afraid to read it. I'm sure its nothing. I want to think its nothing – but I felt something. The way she touched my arm! The way she smiled – I think she meant it…. Oh God I am so afraid to read that note. But I've waited long enough… I am safe and alone in my room I must face it now, sick though I feel at the mere thought of it.

-She wants me to meet her! Dear God, she wants me to meet her in _her__ room_! What shall I do! I can't go I am sworn forever to Lily. No no no no – it can't be _that_. She wants to meet me to discuss school work that's all – no woman wants anything else from _me_ – least of all a beautiful, wealthy Slytherin like her. No woman wants me – but why does she want to meet in _her__ room_?

Surely if it were regarding class work she would meet me in the Common Room – where we all – all of us – always meet. Even if it is to be us alone – why her room unless it were anything else?

It's a trick. It's all a trick - like all the other times when I was younger and I was asked to go somewhere! Perhaps every other time I was invited out with the group it was all leading up to this. When I get to her room - that is when they unleash the joke.

Can boys even get into the girls rooms! I know that is the case with Gryffindor. All the boys complain of the stairs changing… Is it different for us? Probably not – I'll bet that's part of the joke. I'm not going.

…. And yet. That's what I'm here for, is it not? Was I not placed on this Earth for people to mock and hate? That has been the only true purpose I have ever posed all my life. I am here for other people to use. And what will happen if I stay here in my room? Nothing. Fuck this then, if she wants me – for whatever purpose she can have me. I am nothing. I am nothing here, I am nothing in her room, but I am less of a nothing if I am being used for something. I might as well go to her. I have to I can't take another night here in my room alone suffering as I do. I'm going. I'm doing it. This will be the Shrieking Shack all over again. What difference does it make…

~My room

It wasn't schoolwork. As soon as I got to her room, I knew. It was no trick – and I think that scared me even more.

We were alone. Music was playing softly in the background, it was dark but for a few candles. She told me she was happy I had come – it had gotten so late she thought I might not come at all. I had no idea what to say. All I stupidly said was that I thought boys couldn't visit the girls in their rooms. She said they couldn't – in other dorms. She said that Salazar must have wanted it this way when he built the Slytherin Dorms. Everyone just keeps it quiet. She said everyone just accepts it as part of his plan to encourage Pure blood matches among the Pure blood house.

"Oh."

Well that certainly didn't help to change the subject. The obviousness of the answer didn't make me feel any less foolish either. I had no idea what to do or say. I just smiled and said stupidly, "That makes sense." The next thing I knew, she put her arms around me.

Locked in an embrace. It was what I had needed so badly all this time. And yet, it wasn't at all like, this fulfilling thing… We were just, bodies. It didn't mean anything…. But, it was enough. I felt… it wasn't like I felt nothing. I did feel something. But then I just felt, numb, and at peace so -so then… I pulled her into me tighter. I felt her breasts press up against me. She wasn't upset by it, she just leaned into me, and she kissed my neck. I tried not to cry. Surely she felt me draw breath so suddenly.

I don't know why, but I felt so overwhelmed by this flood of emotions, her lips – her breath on neck and – I kissed her. Just like that. I _kissed_ her.

I've never kissed anyone before in my life! I had no idea what I was doing – but she did. The moment my lips touched hers – she just took over. She forced open my mouth with hers and instantly slid her tongue against mine with this force like vortex. It was so sudden and intense….

It was weird. I wasn't expecting it - it was almost _gross_. I never imagined kissing would be so, perverted... She just, went right in with her tongue it was really intense and wet and I was so overcome…. But I went with it. It wasn't at all like I'd always dreamed. It just felt dirty. Even still as dark and weird as it all was – I was so relieved. I'm 16, and I've never even kissed a woman. What the hell is wrong with me? Doesn't everyone speak of his or her first kisses as these magical moments? Not to mention having had them happen much earlier in life?

It wasn't magic. I didn't feel much. All I can remember thinking was - at least I was finally doing something normal. So pathetic I couldn't get anyone to kiss me until now…

That was it. We just snogged for a few minutes. And than we heard Peeves in the next room singing.

She instinctively pulled away. I wasn't upset. All I could think was that I was glad for the reason to stop. It is the second time Peeves has saved me from an awkward moment. I laughed, she didn't know why I laughed, but she too laughed at the situation.

"He probably won't even come in," she explained. Then she told me a story about Peeves catching her roommate snogging in the third year. She told me he had only teased her a few times when they weren't around other students. I was shocked. But she explained Peeves seems only to torment people for public acts of embarrassment. She said – "he's actually pretty forgiving when he catches people snogging or worse."

"Think about it," she said, "If he told on everyone he caught, it's all you would hear about!"

"Of course," That was all I could manage to say. I felt so stupid. How would I know? I've never been with anyone in such a situation to think of these things. But I had to say something or risk looking even more stupid. I said something like, "True, I never really thought of it I guess that happens a lot." I hope it was enough to save me from looking so foolish.

She didn't let on if she thought it. She just went on to explain that some of the other ghosts have squealed on students caught in the act. Not often but it does happen. She said, "Peeves on the other hand is actually really respectful and maintains a level of discretion – if only in that matter. So Peeves not nearly as bad as people think." "No he's not." I said. I didn't think it possible to like Peeves more that I already did, but I do. I didn't say that to her, but I was still thinking it.

Such an odd conversation to have after such a moment. But I was glad to have something to talk about other than the moment that had just passed. I'm guessing she was as well. I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I told her I had to go, but that I'd see her in class in the morning. I hope I did the right thing. I don't know. It was a weird night. I feel really really weird. I don't know how I will sleep tonight.

~Wednesday – Defense Against the Dark Arts – Cloudy

I can't stop thinking about last night. I still don't know how I even feel about what happened. I fell guilty for cheating on Lily. That I know, though I know how ridiculous a concept – "cheating" on her is. As for Tisiphone, I feel so awkward. I clearly had no idea what to do when I was with her, yet she clearly had been through _that_ before. I should be doing such things. I should have been doing such things all this time! -Christ Avery has had women since before coming to school! He first kissed a girl when he was _ten_. And we all know about what he and Morgane Stride did in the fifth year. So, why can't I be normal? I will never be normal. I mean - I didn't even like snogging... Did I?

Lily keeps looking at Potter, and he looks back at her in his pompous manner, while she looks at him clearly in love. He just looks at her and he is just so smug. Potter looks at her as if to say, "Yeah, I know you love me, what?" I want to wipe that look off his face. I want to slam his fucking face it into that desk and we'll see if he is still smug after that. As if I could do that… but I will cast the Toe Nail Growth Hex on him later for good measure… That fucking bastard -

_Sick._ Surely she and he have snogged. They've probably done it be now. The thought is sickening. No, they haven't. They couldn't have – or else we would all know. Potter would have broadcast that himself by now. Had it happened he would have sent an owl to everyone, taken out a page in The Daily Profit even - git that he is… Black was sure let everyone know about Bertha Jorkins when he slept with her. And Potter - he couldn't wait to tell everyone how he shacked up with Susan Constantia, only took him three hours to spread it through The Great Hall. He will certainly tell everyone the moment it happens. Fucking die _both_ of you.

~Still Wednesday Common Room

Oh sweet Lily forgive me…

I am _still _haunted by last night. What am I doing? This is so wrong. Lily, she reminds me of you, and yet, Tisiphone is nothing like you – at all. She is good at Potions. She puts up with me – at least she has for the time being. But that is where it ends.

You are as different from she as day is night...

She has such shocking amethyst eyes. They do not reflect light and warmth as your eyes do. Her eyes hide something I cannot see... I do not think her evil, but there is something devious in her gem like gaze.

Her hair is nothing like yours. Her hair is sleek, straight and far too perfect. You hair is soft, and wavy, flowing freely about your shoulders... So soft…so fluffy. But hers – jet fucking black. That long black hair of hers reflects light like some slick metal machine.

Her face, her features are so much more angular than yours. Her _eyes_… so sharp… Her skin is as pale as moonlight. For she, like all such upper class women was kept indoors… preserved in perverse perfection. But not you Lily… Your sweet face was kissed by the sun, under which you walked freely with the rest of us – and you were given freckles to prove it.

Lily, you are the _sweetest_ and most beautiful girl. Tisiphone… it's not that she isn't pretty… She is in fact, very beautiful. But her's is the kind of harsh glamour that makes me feel intimidated. She was never approachable as you were. You, an outcast lonely little boy could walk up to in a playground and befriend. She on the other hand is the kind of woman who seems so far out of reach.

Lily you always dress in pretty dresses. You look amazing in just jeans and a sweater. But Tisiphone, her parents were wealthy Slytherins, so of course her wardrobe is just – so far beyond either of us. Its not that she dresses in a showy manner, as some of the other Slytherins do…. but with that kind of financial backing, she can't help but look perfect even thought she does not mean to. She is always flawless. She is always dressed in impeccable black clothing, not one wrinkle, not one hair out of place.

And her _body_. You hugged me when we were younger...I can still remember how you felt. There is softness to you that she just does not have. She told me she was a dancer – that despite Hogwarts neglecting the arts of dancing, theater and painting – she made it a point to practice and improve on her own. Her body is almost as tight and hard as mine – which we all know only seems to be muscular because I am just so skinny myself…

And that kiss. You and I would have cuddled. You would never kiss me so abruptly like that. She just, got right in and… It was so dirty and felt so wrong. And the more I think about it, the more my dark side feels pulled in by it. I do feel something stirring – actually _pulling_ at me from the inside. I feel sick, and yet I want more. I know its wrong and I think that is why I want to go back for more.

~Wednesday Night – In my room - dying

I'd just finished writing those horrid things… I left class and began making my way to Astronomy. So when she passed me in the hall - slowing down as she brushed past me, turning her head ever so discreetly to whisper in a breathy, low voice right into my ear– "come to my room again tonight,"

–I instantly spoke in the same whisper turning my head to her and said it –

"Yes."

I met her. She was waiting for me in the hallway outside of the Slytherin Dorms. Her roommate was already in their room with someone – so she pulled me down a dark corridor. I let her pull me into the shadows. We'd barely ducked under the stone steps when she put her hands around my neck, hooking her thumbs behind my ears and digging the rest over her fingers through my hair into my head. She pulled my face to hers and started aggressively kissing me. I kissed her back with equal aggression, I was shocked by it – and only kissed her back harder. This time it was my tongue darting so intrusively into her mouth. And she kissed me back both of us breathing harder as we went…

I couldn't understand what I was feeling, but whatever it had taken such hold of me. I know I wasn't thinking – because I suddenly came to realize that my hands were unbuttoning her jacket. I thought she would slap my hands away but she only responded my slipping her hand down my shirt. I felt her run her fingers down my chest… then she dug her nails into my flesh and dragged her fingers back up to my neck. My heart was beating so hard and I knew she could feel it.

Just as I'd gotten her jacket off she began unbuttoning my shirt, and I hers... Oh God I don't even know but my hands were on her breasts. I started kissing them - it was intense. Holy fucking God my tongue on her nipples… My shirt was unbuttoned, she'd pulled off my tie, and she'd placed her hands on my neck. I lifted my head and closed my eyes as her hands slid to my shoulders. Her longs slim fingers slid from my shoulders down my arms and my shit fell to the floor. I dropped to my knees. I ran my hands from her breasts and down to her hips.

I placed my hands on her waist. She grabbed my wrists as I continued to look up at her – both of us breathing hard, neither of us saying a thing. On my knees I kept looking at her face. I was afraid because I knew. She was looking down at my arm. She was staring at my tattoo. She didn't register any emotion at all. That she didn't even ask about my tattoo, seems all too fitting now when I think back…

But then I stood up. My body was no longer my own because I would never do such a thing, but once again I took her tiny little waist and I dug my fingers into her with a strength I did not know I had. And kissed her deeply as she put her hands onto my shoulders. And then I don't know what the fuck happened but the next thing I hear is McGonagall screaming down the hallway.

Oh my fucking God - because was so _obvious_ as I was standing there with my shirt off and – Oh my God - Tisiphone! Oh my fucking _God!_ I quickly dropped my head and tried to hide her bare breasts with my hair. I didn't even care that Minerva was going off about taking five points each from Slytherin – I was so mortified, not so much for myself but for _Tisiphone_.

We both threw our clothes on as fast as we could - McGonagall all the while was almost shouting at Tisiphone – telling her, _"__go __straight __to __your __room __this __instant!__"_ There was something strange about the way they were with each other… It was far too much familiarity between Tisiphone and another Head of House. It was almost as if this were a common occurrence between them …And she didn't yell at me, or send me anywhere. I didn't know what to do except stand there, straightening myself out further as Tisiphone left.

I had no idea what to do. McGonagall just turned around and wouldn't look at me thankfully. I figured she was about to give me detention. But she only shook her head and said, "Severus, honestly…"

I could have sworn she was – no she didn't laugh. Oh - so what if she just let us off easy - what does it matter! Poor Tisiphone. Oh dear Lord I've infuriated the only other woman who has shown me kindness. _I_ took off _her_ shirt after all. I tired to cover her with my hair… I tried, but what will it matter. Surely she didn't notice. Forget snogging her - now I'll never see her or have fun with her ever again. Surely she will hate me after this.


	6. Chapter 6

~Thursday – The Great Hall Sunlight

She noticed! She was waiting for me this morning in the Common Room! She wasn't even mad! She _thanked_ me for covering her with my hair! I was so excited, my heart just leapt. I apologized for what happened, but she really wasn't upset at all. "Don't worry about it!" she told me.

"But we must be cursed," I told her. "That's twice we've been caught," I tired to explain. Honestly we must be.

She just laughed. "We aren't cursed," she told me, "We just need to be more careful next time!"

What! Anyone else being told such a thing would be relieved, happy even. Next time? I was uneasy… But before I could begin to worry about it she burst into a fit of joy. She began laughing as she me we were going to race that night! I had no idea what she was on about. She spoke so excitedly I could barely understand.

But she laughed, and grabbed the hood of my robes and dragged me into the Common Room. I had to run to keep from being choked. It was funny… Then we got where the others were arguing.

I love it! We are all sneaking out again tonight! But tonight – it will be a race! Evan it turns out has found a secret passage. He swears it's a faster way to Hogsmeade.

Avery declared bullshit. "Bullshit!" I heard him say, because they were still arguing over it when we reached them. "Magic is faster!" he swore. "Besides," he said, "Secret passages are for Muggles with no other way out!"

"Bullshit!" Evan yelled right back – not in anger – but mock anger, because we were all laughing. "Bullshit – I'll bet you anything I can beat you by going through the passage!"

"Its on!" Avery declared.

"Yes it is!" So Evan and Mulciber are going through the passage. Obviously I prefer Avery's method, so I said I would go with him. Tisiphone and Wilkes are coming with us as well. I am so excited.

We all left the Common Room shouting about it as we ran to class with no fear of getting caught at all. I mean, honestly, who in Slytherin would rat us out to the professors? Just as I thought that, Tisiphone pulled me back by my shoulder. She whispered so that only she and I could hear, "So tonight – Hogsmeade, and Saturday night I'll make sure we have the room and will not be disturbed." I went weak. I was terrified and elated at the same time.

I don't know – it is all so exhilarating! All I know – is that we are going to beat Evan and Mulciber by a long shot! I cannot _fucking_ wait for tonight!

~Thursday – Friday something…. Dark out

So it started. We all gathered in the middle of the Common Room.

Right. Standing in a circle – on the count of three. _One_. _Two_ – _Three_ –

-_GO_!

Evan and Mulciber tore off! We ran like hell to our usual window - we couldn't even breathe we were laughing so hard - let alone speak! But just as Avery was casting all the usual enchantments I calmed myself enough to say it – "Fuck walking! Lets just Disapparate once we leave the grounds!" The others shrieked and laughed in agreement - but Avery shook his head to say no. The others were all still laughing too hard to see this as I had...

I know he still hasn't mastered the art of Disapparation. I knew that was why he didn't want us to try it. It would have looked really bad if I were to have done it for him… Ever since Rodolphus left, Avery has been The One… I knew - so I quickly changed the subject before the others could see it – "No! Let's fucking take _brooms_!"

The others squealed – _fucking __squealed_! We tore off - and in a _heartbea_t - I swear we were all back at that fucking window with the fasted fucking brooms we could find! Fuck - we _flew_ out that fucking window like bats out of hell!

We flew so fast! We touched down just outside Hogsmeade and ran to the spot where we had meant to meet in the woods. Evan and Mulciber were nowhere to be seen! We'd _beat _them! "Magic wins!" I yelled. Avery started in yelling - "Magic wins – magic is might!" We were all cheering, "Magic is Might – Magic is might!" It was so great!

Avery looked around. He was laughing and said something about how we gotten there even faster than he thought we would. He said it would be at least a half hour more until the other two came. Avery is so great. Anyone else in that position would have become arrogant and cocky. But Avery is not one to rub in such a victory. Instead, he told us he would be sneaking off for a moment to make the most of our stolen time. He returned a few minutes later carrying two large parcels. He had brought Fire Whiskey for _everyone!_

Finally Evan arrived with Mulciber - they were laughing and shouting, "_Fuck__ you!__"_ But they were not sour over their loss at all. And Avery, Wilkes and Tisiphone were not pompous about their win! Avery handed them both Fire Whiskey and we all drank to Magic! It was so fucking great! We started drinking, and then Evan said that he too had a gift for everyone - a special something grown by Patricia Lisorra in the Hufflepuff dorms… Those Puffs. People talk a lot of shit about them but I'll say this - they know how to grow some serious fucking weed.

Then Tisiphone cast a charm – suddenly her wand had become a torch. A flame burst forth from the end, and form it she lit a massive bonfire! We all cheered. Wilkes then charmed the radio. It started to play a song that I recognized from the Muggle world, "Pigs on the Wing". Those Muggles. They maybe clueless – but the music they create is nothing short of amazing. So we just hung out there by the fire and our brooms, drinking, smoking and jamming out to Floyd and Zeppelin.

Amazing. It was the greatest thing in the world to just be there, getting high, fire burning - Kashmir drowning out all else but the sky and the stars above us….

…I don't know how, I have no memory of it but somehow we must have staggered into town at some point. I remember standing near this shop, there was a sign but I was too fucking stoned to read it. All I knew was that Evan, and Avery were at it again. Everyone was laughing – the two of them were throwing rocks trying to see who could knock off the sign. We were _so_ fucking loud, how no one came to see what all the commotion was I don't even know!

I just remember thinking how funny it was. Literally _everything_ was funny! Every time they threw a rock I laughed. -Someone _spoke_ and I laughed. I couldn't breathe – my stomach hurt from laughing so much – and Tisi and I were leaning on each other – we had to, because leaning on each other was the only thing keeping us upright we were laughing so much!

At some point in the middle of the rock throwing – pissing contest, Evan turns to us and blurts out – "Is it true McGonagall caught you two snogging in the hall half naked!"

At that we fell over. "YES!" we both screamed and laughed. Because by then it was the funniest fucking thing ever. She caught us half naked and snogging! It _is_ funny! It is so _fucking_ funny. Everyone laughed. "Well then I'm sorry to hear it," Evan said as he bent over to pick up a rock. He stood for a moment holding it, then turned to all of us and announced, "Severus, Tisiphone – this is for you guys" – and he chucked that fucking rock like a gunshot and that fucking sign _flew __off_!

"_Evan __you __little __shit!__"_ I somehow managed to scream. Everyone fell on the road laughing so uncontrollably at that.

"Well Evan," Avery somehow managed to scream through hysterical laughter, "I guess now we're even!"

Holy shit - I couldn't breathe for laughing so hard. We all just lay there pounding our fists on the ground – completely unable to get a hold of ourselves. And then someone yelled – _"__someone__'__s__ coming!__"_ So we somehow still laughing, we scrambled back up from the ground and ran for the brooms - _"__Quick __we__'__ve __got __to __get__ back __before __they __know!__"_ Avery had to take Mulciber on his broom and I had to take Evan on mine. It was the best shit ever.

We got back about twenty minutes ago. Lets see…. It's about half past five in the morning now. No point sleeping. I must go quickly and take a bath and go to class. I smell like weed.

~Friday Noon The Great Hall – Snow

So, even thought I didn't sleep - I was still nearly late getting to class. I ran to Defense Against the Dark Arts and there was Potter standing there blocking the door. The prat wouldn't move - he stood there to keep me from going in. He smiled contemptuously at me and asked, "Why were you running Snivellus?" I was about to duck my head like always and just shove past him. But suddenly, something stirred within me. I looked at him. For once, he didn't look like much. I felt Avery and the others my sides. Then somehow, a voice that wasn't mine said, "Potter, _Move_."

And he _did_! I fucking told Potter off – almost – and he didn't defy me! I can't believe it! My voice didn't shake - my hands did not tremble, I simply walked past him. I got to my desk, and I just started laughing. The others laughed too. And Potter, he didn't say shit! He just went to his desk – like a little bitch!

Then class started and I passed out. Lily must have seen - and I don't care. She's seen far worse of me by now...

That Evan is such a good man. He woke me up just before class ended to tell me that it was almost time to go. He said he had been sleeping too but that he'd had a dream about a naked Morgan le Fay. He said it had gotten him up – "in more ways then one."

"Evan you little shit!"

~Friday Night – Common Room

Avery and Mulciber gave me a new book. They took it from The Restricted Section when Madam Pince wasn't looking. How they managed that, I don't want to know. At the same time, this book really isn't all that dangerous. There are a lot of useful spells in it. This school withholds far too much information from us. I mean really, why even have a Restricted Section…

I'd read more, but I'm too tired. I was doing well until about twenty minutes ago… but last night has finally caught up to me. Must sleep. I'll sleep till noon tomorrow, and then I'll be good.

~Saturday – Later afternoon – Common Room

I was sitting alone by the fireplace. Tisiphone asked me to come to her room tonight. I know what's going to happen… I don't know what to think or feel. I think I am afraid, and I really want to go to her - but I don't want to go to her.

I don't know what's going to happen.


	7. Chapter 7

~Still Dark

I can't. I'm back in my room now. I can't write about it – I just want to run.

I ran. I went outside, staggered and stuttered nonsense where no one would see or hear me. She, we – I'm – it was awful. It was all so wrong. I don't know – I didn't know. I just went there, and I had no idea what I was going to do. The moment of it -

All I knew was that when the moment came, I wanted to be ready. I wanted to not be afraid. I wanted not to hesitate – I wanted just to take it and…. I did.

I went to her room. It was dark and we were alone. She disappeared behind the curtains of her four-poster bed. I knew she was undressing. I was afraid. My heart was beating so hard I swore somehow she could feel the vibrations from across the room. And somehow, my blood rushing in my ears – I shifted from fear to determination, to sheer will.

Driven. I turned back to her. She was laying there naked, pale, white limbs draped across emerald green sheets. I held her in my eyes. I saw her darkness. I felt dead. My mind shut off, all thought stopped and I was a rush of blood. Barely breathing. Lust. Her eyes narrowed, and told me to come to her. Darkness – my feet upon the stone floor… my hands and knees on her sheets.

Her hard body in my arms. Her face in mine. Ice-cold amethyst eyes, raven black locks spilling over her, over me… She arched back onto the sheets, my hands on her waist, her hands on my shoulders. She offered herself to me. There was no hesitation. I pressed into her, she opened herself to me – _she_ – her, and not you. I hated you so much in that instant. But she, she and _you_ – I would I have called out to you in that moment – it was _her_, only her. She gave herself – _to__me_ – and I – gave myself _to __her_. I drove into her. Her feverish heat, cold stare of a dragon, as soft as velvet inside. Saliva, darkly sweet poison, red lips. Sweat, the snowstorm outside. She dug her finger nails into my flesh, grabbed at her breasts, she breathed into my grasp – she dug her fingers deeper into me and I drove deeper into her. Sick.

It was, its – just… wrong. It was horrible - and I loved it. I _fucked_ the hell out of her. And then she turned. She grabbed me, flipped me onto my back, pushed me down by my shoulders onto her sheets and mounted me. She bit me, hard. She bit my lower lip, she bit my shoulders, she pushed me down and then she fucked the hell out of me.

We went off on each other. It was violent, it was sick. It was a sin.

I'd say she bewitched me, ensnared me with some wretched tincture but I know she did not – for I would know every form of love inducing potion she could possibly use. I've made them all. I've stared at them, paralyzed by the fear of their horrific powers. I stared transfixed, always knowing that I could never curse Lily in that way – ever. No. Tisiphone did not do this to me. I came to her of my own will.

I know Tisiphone did not use love potion on me. I do not love her.

What we did, that was not love. That had nothing to do with love.

I feel somehow further stained by this act. I am no longer pure.

So I am no longer pure. I was never pure to begin with.

~Tuesday – Potions Class

We snuck out again last night. We went in the woods again, at what has now become our very own special place at the fire – her fire. Avery, he's been talking about his new hero. Some wizard Rodolphus knows. Avery wants us all to go see him. Whatever I have no objections. Fine.

I sat there. The smell of burnt wood and smoke filled my lungs. Fire snapped in my face. Over the heat, light and popping of the fire I barely heard what he said. Tisiphone was at my side. Our hands clasped together. Our fingers interlaced, our twin Serpent rings overlapped. For a moment, I almost thought us… but we're not. This isn't love. It just felt good, physically to have a woman wrap her arm around my waist.

I wanted so much to hug Lily for so long… But there I was with in the woods with out her. Tisi's arm draped around me… The heat from her hand on my stomach, close enough to actually feel each other breathe. It's more awkward, embracing is – then I dreamed it would be with Lily. But there is no mistaking it. This is not love. Still, I stayed unmoving, starred unblinking… Tisiphone's dark hair in the firelight. She curled her fingers into my hair and she pulled. It hurt.

I feel she is using me. She seems now to be this, wicked woman who takes me from my innocent love. Tisiphone and I are not innocent – anything but. And there it is. We are not innocent. I am not innocent. It me – I am wicked. I am evil. I gave in - I sinned against Lily. And yet even as that guilt consumed my thoughts, I did take my arm from Tisiphone's shoulder.

I am so tainted…. Lily is a pure hearted Angel. Lily transfigures teacups innocently into rats. Tisi transfigures her wand into a riding crop. Her wand is now permanently in the form of a riding crop – she never turns it back. Lily is the sweet Gryffindor whom I studied with when I was a wounded, but pure hearted child. Tisi is this, bad Slytherin girl who sneaks out, smokes pot and throws rocks. Tisiphone does terrible things to me. I am no longer pure with her, and I am becoming less so with each passing day that I spend in her cruel embrace. Tease, for this cannot possibly last.

Who knows how many people she's done it with before me? I cannot help but wonder if – or rather whom she is _still_doing it with. I've heard the rumors about her, with Mulciber, with Evan, with Donovan Moore even.

Which makes it all the more weird. I am certain she has had many boys before me. So why she would want to be with someone as ugly as me? She must have needed it really bad that night, and last night. I don't care if she wants to use me. I have said it before. That is why I am here. I am here for everyone to use. It doesn't matter. I don't matter. Nothing matters at all.

~Saturday – Hogsmeade Field Trip

Weird to be here in daylight. I forgot how it looks in the light.

We did it again last night. I don't know what I'm feeling…. I feel so weird. It is so hard for me to understand why any woman would want to be with me. Am I even good? She wanted me more than once. She seemed into it last night. She dug her nails into my back and she cried out. She smiled even. I don't know.

She bites me a lot. I'm covered in teeth marks. It doesn't matter. Obviously I never let anyone else see my bare arms.

Sex is not what I imagined at all. At least not with her… With her - It's violent. We're both so aggressive when we do it. I suppose it is part of my curse, my punishment. This is what I get for having wanted Lily - my guardian angel – so violently. For all of my sins, I am given to this strange woman – whose aggression matches mine.

And yet, for all I may fear in her, Tisiphone still calls me Sev.

~Sunday – The Great Hall

I woke up in a cold sweat again last night. What am I doing?

Get it together Severus.

~Tuesday – The Great Hall Sun

I feel so guilty. Lily passes me in the hall and I freeze. Every time I see her, I cannot move, even or look in her direction for the guilt I feel at sinning against her. I should stop – but I can't. I want Tisiphone. I need to feel her arms around me. I need to feel inside of her. It's the only time I can breathe. Of course I don't love Tisiphone. How could I love anyone other than Lily? But I sin against her with another woman and I cannot stop.

She offers herself to me. No one has _ever_ done that. Maybe this all one sick joke. Perhaps Tisiphone lost a bet or this is some wild dare from one of the guys. What can I do? I like how it all feels.

The way she and I laugh when we're together maybe it's not fake? No. It's me. Its one thing for Avery and the others want me around. Tisiphone, wanting to kiss me and do things with me, that is something else all together. I don't know why she is doing this to me.

~Wednesday – The Great Hall – Sun

She slips her tongue,

into my mouth.

One slip of the tongue,

and I am brought to this.

~Monday – Defense Against the Dark Arts – Cold

Staring blindly in class. I cannot stop thinking about her – her perfect dancers legs and how she splits them apart so gracefully, pointing her toes, maintaining perfect form even as I fuck her hard - slamming her back down onto the bed with every thrust.

Only truly Dark Magic can account for the way she quivers and convulses beneath me when she is in the throws of ecstasy. Only truly Dark Magic can account for how, in those moments I give myself into her so completely. Even now I grow hard at the thought of her. I _do_ want to go to her tonight and I hate myself for it.

I cannot stop thinking about her. Staring at the back of her head. I want to be pulling her hair again as I was last night – awful though the thought is… but I want to do it. I want to mount her again – dear God the way I nearly kicked open her legs as I climbed on her bed but she just lifted herself open to me.

I want her, now. I want to feel her pale cold breasts grow hot in my hands – the heat I feel inside of her - and when she takes me in her mouth – can't write anymore.

~Tuesday – The Great Hall

Get it together Severus…

~Wednesday – Almost Thursday – Cold Clear Sky

What am I doing? I am losing my focus of late.

Tisiphone and I were in the Common Room. Studying for once. She asked to borrow my copy of Advanced Potion Making to check something about a certain antidote she's been working to perfect. So I - with out thinking - stupidly lent it to her.

Still not thinking, still with my head in another book I heard her say it – and my heart stopped

"Half-Blood Prince?"

"_What?"_

"That's what it says in your book." FUCK.

She obviously saw the look of horror on my face because she started in asking me what was wrong. Well I had to tell her. I started to explain - Stupid Stupid Stupid. But I had already opened my mouth to speak so it was too late. All I could think was. Great. She will really think me strange. I did my best to keep my explanation brief. I told her it that it was my mother's maiden name. That she is a witch and that I – but she stopped me there.

"And you don't want to…" She trailed off and seemed to fully understand with out my having said it.

"Yeah…I don't exactly - when it comes to that side of the family…" I trailed off and she looked at me. She actually told me that she understood.

"Yes," I told her, "I just, prefer to use that name, even though it's… silly." Then I begged her not to tell anyone. She agreed. She also said she didn't think it silly. I'm not sure if she really meant that. I don't care – well, I do care but I'm more worried she will tell people.

Dear God I hope she doesn't tell anyone, how could I be so Stupid? I must be more careful!

~Thursday – My room. Night

All the guys have been talking all day about going to see Avery's hero. I still am not nearly as enthusiastic about it as they are. I feel so awful. How could I be so weak willed? I have gone back on everything I ever swore. I swore to stay away from them. I swore I would work hard and be Virtuous - I swore myself to Lily!

What's the use – I might as well give up… Though I still have a hard time believing it, a lot of people have been saying that he has changed. They say Lily has changed him and that he is a good person. Maybe he is, and I have been wrong. I am certainly wrong in other ways… I am so cursed and dirty now. I always was. As much as I fear I have ruined myself of late, in truth, how much more could I have ruined what was already so filthy and foul to begin with?

He then is the better man. By far. That night in The Shrieking Shack, perhaps he should have just left me to my fate. The curses that have been born of my rage - of my contaminated, sick blood… I am truly the dangerous one. How could I even dream of a life with Lily? I would taint her with my every touch. And what could I even give to her? What will I become when I leave school? What could my future possibly offer her? My past certainly offers her nothing. Spinner's End? How could I curse her to live in such a horrific dark place? That is all I could ever offer to her – a life of nightmares.

James on the other hand, his future is so bright. His family, what will be handed down to him… not that he needs it. He will go on to play on a professional Quidditch Team. He could in truth do anything. As Head Boy, the world will be his to take. Any career he chooses he will have and he will be wildly successful. He can give her the world; he can give her a good life.

I was never meant for such a life, ever. I don't know how to love, I was not meant for love - as I have always said. And what of children - for she will surely want them… How could I – have children – with her? How could I ever curse her children with my tainted blood? Shall I pass on his filth and his rage and all that is now so horrible in me onto her child! I am sick at the mere thought of it.

I won't do I! I could never do something so terrible _ever_.

~Friday – History of Magic - Snow

Potter is a good man. I keep telling myself that. I want to believe that.

But I see them in the hall. He is a good man, I keep telling myself. But I can't shake it. When I see them together I cannot seem to rid myself of this terrible sense of foreboding. It is not jealously that I am feeling – I know jealously – I know when that emotion seizes me – but that's not what I feel... Whenever I think on it, I have this undeniable sense that something is terribly wrong. -But everything is all right. It is. So why can't I shake it?

…Because –"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."

~Saturday – Common Room – Suddenly warm, snow becomes Fog and Mist

I spent the night with Tisiphone again. Our time together continues to grow stranger... She has taken to blindfolding me these past few nights. She blindfolds me and bites me. Why has she taken to doing this? Does she not want to see my eyes? What was it she said? She was saying something. Tuesday night when we were together I think she said- that when she used to look at me in fifth year – my eyes were different. She was saying, that my eyes were a warm brown flecked with green, but that now they've become dark and lost "much of their light and color". I didn't think much on it until now. My eyes are hazel – they change color all the time. But outright _lost_ light and color? Have they? I avoid my reflection when ever possible so I wouldn't know. I guess She doesn't want to look at my dull, ugly eyes. Perhaps she finds my ever-changing eye color to be creepy. Everyone else thinks I'm creepy, surely so does she…

Whatever her reasons, I'm not sure how I feel about all this. Just try to relax she says. How can I relax? I am completely blind… In truth, I'm terrified. How am I to know what's going on? Is it just us in the room? Has she brought people into the room to mock me? Is she going to do something weird? Other than bite me that is...

She has that riding crop of a wand sitting on her dresser. When where not going at it, she plays with it. She'll say she misses her horses as much as she misses dancing and painting. I understand what it is to miss something. Still, it's a riding crop isn't it? I'm blinded and at her mercy!

She has once traced my body with it. Am I so far off in thinking she will one night strike me repeatedly with it! Do I want her to use it? I don't know how I'd feel about that. Biting is painful, but only just. A riding crop? God tell me I now desire to be beaten – no I don't. But I like licking and biting so… God this is all so… strange.

Strange and confusing.

~Astronomy – Cloudy

Can't see the sky for the stars. Too cloudy. Lecture. I don't believe I've ever had time to write in Astronomy – nor such need of it. Awful day.

Started out all right. The Great Hall being decorated for Christmas. I may have stopped caring for the most part, but some small part of me still gets excited around Christmas time. That I am not going home certainly adds to my happiness. I was made oddly happy looking out upon all the glittering crystals springing from Flitwick's Wand onto the branches…

The others sat beside me. They started in again talking about that wizard Avery admires so much. They decided they would go to see him after everyone returned from the Christmas Holidays. They are all so excited when they speak of it. I still don't see what the big deal is. I mean, isn't he just some Slytherin who went on to work for Borgin and Burkes? I don't know… They want to join with him and his people. It's just like Slug Club. It's just a pointless prestige thing that people do. It's a name-dropping situation, no one really cares... I'm sure it will be the same dull thing in the end. Everyone sitting around a table and talking a great deal about themselves all so as to impress all the others... though apparently this will take place in the woods around a fire, not in a home at a table. Honestly I'm just looking forward to sneaking out to Hogsmeade again.

We haven't snuck in so long it's been so cold. I was thinking about that, and I realized it would be cold and we would be outside. I pointed out the weather to the others, and I said it was a good thing Tisiphone is so good at making fires, or else we'd certainly freeze off a thing or two.

They all laughed, but then – they finally after all this time brought it up. So long I have been a part of this group. So long it has weighed upon me, knowing they were all thinking it, but not saying anything. Perhaps they kept silent from pity or the sheer awkwardness of it. Either way, it has not been lost on me – how accommodating they have been, to include someone of my low social and economic status into their group.

I am Half-Blood after all. I come from a shitty part of London. I have hardly any money to my name. The rest of Slytherin House, this group in particular - they are all Pure blood – from ancient families and old money. They will all go home to their families next week. Those families will accept and cherish their magical abilities. Those families happily financed their educations. Each of them will inherit an estate when they leave school. Whether they work or not, they will be provided for. They out rank me in every way. To look at all of us together… it is so painfully obvious that I am far beneath them. Me in my shabby threadbare clothing while they are all impeccably dressed in rich robes so perfectly suited to their elite status...

So there it is. Avery stops laughing – not completely - just enough to show me that he is serious, but not cruel. "Snape", he says to me, "I've been meaning to talk to you. You're going with us of course," he assures me in all earnest, which helped, "But…you can't wear those robes. You can not go before _him_ dressed like _that_."

I just hung my head in shame. I didn't protest, because it's true. I didn't come from a good home as they did. I have nothing. It was absolutely mortifying to bear it...

"Don't worry!" he adds quickly, "We'll think of something." And then he goes back to talking rapidly about the plans for the big night.

What am I going to do? _Awful!_ Still, they've been so good to put up with me for so long. "We'll think of something." "You're going with us of course." They're still putting up with me. I felt _so_ awful about it. And then it got worse.

Because then there was Tisiphone. I went to her room again before Astronomy. Yes, because today wasn't awkward enough, I went to her room so we could do more strange awkward things that I could never confess to anyone save this book.

She blindfolded me. She, kissed me, bit me and we wrestled.

She is aggressive with me still. When I think on it, I realize sadly, that I still like pain inflicted upon me. I don't feel the anxiety that is always gnawing at me nearly as much when she bites me, or if we fall off the bed or some such thing when we're being rough. What difference is there really between this and unleashing Sectumsempra on myself in the past? The only difference now is that someone else gives it to me. True, she is far, far gentler with her teeth than I was with my spell. But with her, one never knows when the hit is going to come – or how hard it will be. Which of course brings me back to the blindfold.

I was uncertain about it at first. It made me nervous, but I think I have come to like being blindfolded now. She even asked me tonight if I minded her blindfolding me, because I have never expressed much or something to that effect. I told her that I didn't mind. In truth I do not. It is hard to explain why... I mean - I still don't quite trust her. I guess now, I don't care. That's it.

That is why I like the blindfold. When my eyes are bound, I cannot see.

There is so little left that I still wish to see.

I think she knows that. And now, here she sits beside me in the Astronomy Tower, as do the other four, and the rest of the Slytherins. And how fitting, there are no stars. Not for us in Slytherin to see. Its as if the sky is trying to tell us something…

~Christmas Day – Heavy Snowfall

Christmas Day alone in the castle. Everyone has gone home. I stayed…home?

No one else is here. Its cold out. Snow. Really quiet in here. I think even the ghosts have left.

So this is to be my future…

~First Day Back - Storms

The doors slammed open – time restarted, sound returned in a riot of voices I never imagined I'd be so happy to hear. I don't care if it is the screaming Quidditch Idiots or even the Gryfindors... I don't want to be alone anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

~First Day Back - Storms

The doors slammed open – time restarted, sound returned in a riot of voices I never imagined I'd be so happy to hear. I don't care if it is the screaming Quidditch Idiots or even the Gryfindors... I don't want to be alone anymore.

~Monday – Potions Class - Snowing

I kept my head down as I always do on this day every year. I never bring it up. I never tell anyone because no one will celebrate my birthday. If no one knows that it is my birthday, I can pretend they just don't know – rather than face the truth that they do not care. No one ever celebrates my birthday. My mum used to slip me her old spell books on this day, when he wasn't looking, but even she has stopped in recent years. It's not her fault she's forgotten… She's gone quite mad from all he's done. I pretend not to notice her odd behavior when I am around her, lest I give one more thing to worry after. But would she even notice or care if I knew? I don't know…

I hate today because I have to remember how forgotten I am. I was dreading today, that the illusion of my friendships be shattered. I planned to play sick, play dead, and stay in bed for he day. I was in bed... I lay silent under my blankets, wishing I was tired enough to sleep through it all. I wished the others would leave for class and leave me but then Donovan called to me from the door of our room, "are you getting up anytime soon?" I told him I was unwell, but he wasn't asking if I was going to class. "Well" he said this and he was laughing, "You have a visitor, shall I let her in?"

What?

Tisi came bounding into my room. "Skiving off class again!" She jumped onto my bed. "Happy Birthday Sev!" – She tweaked my nose. _What?_ What's going on? Was this real! She had dropped a wrapped box onto me - an actual present – but still it was not singing in.

"Open it!" she shrieked. Open it! –I had no idea what to make of it all. There she was bouncing up and down on my bed like a giddy little girl – I've seen her act like a silly girl before, but I'd never seen her act like _that_.

What else could I do, I unwrapped the box. Then I pulled off the lid, and instantly saw the rich black brocade fabric... No, it couldn't be. But she was bouncing excitedly on the bed next to me, "Take it out!" she insisted. I had to do it. The instant my fingers touched the silk something melted within me. Fabric this exquisite cannot exist – not in my grasp anyway - for I have never been in such close proximity to such a thing unless I was undressing her. This could not be real. I was afraid to touch it. I knew how expensive it was, so I began to remove it from the box very carefully. I pulled it up by the shoulders and kept pulling up an endless cascade of black silk, it seemed like a waterfall in reverse.

"Tisi" – was all I could manage. She was smiling at me so fondly as I held, in my unwashed hands, the most beautiful black coat I have ever seen in my entire life. Black brocade silk embroidered with roses and vines, it was too much. This was something she or Avery or the others would wear. I could never -

But she shrieked - "Put it on!" How could I ever wear something like that? Was I to put that on over my threadbare school uniform that I had passed out in the night before? "Do it!" she cried out bouncing again. I figured I'd better do it. She seemed about to explode from joy…

I stood up, and she helped me into this thing and I couldn't believe how it felt. The back – it's a coat, but there is so much fabric it is a robe. But the cut – it fits me so perfectly and she helped me button it – the buttons – the collar – the wand pocket – it was all too much… but that wasn't the end of it…

I still can't bear what she said to me when she stepped back to look at me. "There," she said, "Now you have a coat fit for the prince that you are."

She said that. She actually said that. I stared at her and shook my head. What could I say to that! So I told her the truth, "I honestly don't know what to say. No one has ever given me anything like this – ever." Then I thanked her profusely.

We had to leave for class. I couldn't wear the coat to class of course - truth be told I am still afraid to wear it - but we ran to class because we were late. A few of the guys on the Quidditch team saw us walk out of my room together and cheered at the sight of us. God, what a morning. And now we are in class. I can't even bring myself to look at her, I feel guilty. I still don't think I thanked her enough. I must figure out what – or how I can ever get her something as nice when her birthday comes in June…

I still can't believe she gave me such a thing. So what if it is my birthday? I shutter to think how many Galleons it must have cost her. I know she comes from money, but even still, how could she just - give me a coat like that?

All this is beyond my birth…

~Tuesday Morning – Still in bed - sunlight

I did it again. I can't believe I did it again after I so recently swore not to slip up…

I have _got_ to stop drinking. I can't believe I told them. I blame the fire whiskey. That, and Patricia Lisorra's Herbology skills…

I'm still not sure how it all happened. I can only assume Tisiphone told everyone it was my birthday, because after Transfiguration – Evan and Wilkes jumped me. They were waiting for me – hiding on either side of the door – they jumped me and before I knew it Avery and Mulciber piled on top of me too! So there we were - five bodies blocking the door and there was all this commotion…

They started ruffling up my hair – all of them yelling _"__you __never __told__ us!__"_

McGonagall came out to see what all the commotion was. She started in yelling too "-At least take it away from my door lads!"

At that they dragged me back to the Common Room and there was this massive snow storm outside… I know we didn't sneak out because of it, I remember that… But how they got so much liquor into our dorms – that much I don't know... All I know is that they got me so drunk! They started screaming and singing. I remember someone bewitching the turntable to play the new Bowie record that Tisi is so obsessed with. I remember Evan screaming over and over "Thank god Heaven left us standing on our feet!"

Everyone else was yelling - _"__My__ My!__"_ in response to him every time. I had to explain to all of them what a "Blackout" was - that much I remember… then things got – fuzzy.

I was so blitzed I remember out of the clear blue sky yelling in the midst of some conversation, "You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything." I'd say that was witty for me in that state, but then there was conversation that followed…

Through veil of drunkenness I think I remember someone calling me Snape. Right. "Snape, we have got to get you something else for your birthday." Something like that. And I stupidly blurted out – "All I want is to never be called Snape again." Someone then asked the obvious question – "So, what should we call you?" We were all still laughing at that point –

And I just – out with it - "The Half-Blood Prince!" And we all laughed. It was funny, at the time. Evan was howling with laughter – "where did that even _come_ from!" At that I began to sober up – but it was too late… I was already speaking…

"My mum is a witch…" I'd said, "The rest I would rather not discuss." Everyone was too drunk to understand my meaning as quickly as Tisiphone had just days earlier.

Finally Avery understood. "Oh." He said – _"__Ooohhhhhhh!__"_ And they all said the same. Then – shocked me almost to complete sobriety – they stopped laughing. They were all saying, "That's really cool man."

"That makes perfect sense," Wilkes had said.

"Perfect sense," Evan echoed, "All right then - Half-Blood Prince it is!"

Now that I think back on it – they _meant_ it. I mean, I know we were smoking at that point, but everyone seemed to understand. Now that I really remember how it was. I think I am glad that I told them. They accepted it. They accept me. It is all I ever wanted…

I still can't believe it. I had a good birthday! I came of age! I had the best birthday I could have ever asked for. I had no parents that day to give me a watch... but I did have a friend who gave me a coat, and a new family that gave me acceptance. I still can't believe what has happened… I am so happy.

Well, I suppose, now that morning is fully upon us I must do something about this headache. "Get up and sleep" indeed!

~Wednesday – Great Hall – Sky full of stars

Everyone is excited to go Friday night. I still cannot believe how accepting everyone has been about my name, even after sobriety set in they still – more then accept it.  
>"It's perfect," they say – "The perfect name to use when we go to see him." And when they saw the coat Tisi gave me - that too they said would be perfect to wear when we go to see him.<p>

Funny. They care so much about going to see him. I'm just so happy to be accepted for what I am. I had a birthday – a party and a present. _Presents_. That's right Tisi told me there was still more to my gift! _More?_ How can she possibly give anything more to me! But she says she is still making something for me. I have no idea what it could be. I have no idea how this can possibly be my life.

-And no I can't say no to the Beauty and the Beast. I shall have to sneak off the grounds tonight….

~Thursday – My Room – Night New Moon

Disapparated to Muggle London to pick up "Low" and "Young Americans". I'm sorry, there is no way that man is a Muggle I don't care what anyone says.

I wonder if we will play music tomorrow night as we always do. Either way, "Breaking Glass," is such a good song it's _sick_. I love my life right now. Sitting in my room listening to music... all I need now is what I have left from Patricia Lisorra…

Yes that is the only thing that could possibly make this record any better. -I snuck out alone last night! I'm looking forward to sneaking out with everyone tomorrow… but now I'm starting to get nervous. I'm not sure why, but now that I am alone to think about it, I must admit I have a strange feeling about all this…

I guess I've never really thought about it at all. I suppose I am more annoyed if anything. Who else do we need in our group? Lucius Malfoy and Rodolphus Lestrange might be there they say. I'm not sure I want to see Rodolphus, not after he got married to Black's cousin. She supposed to be much older. I heard she's almost thirty. They say she was in school with us. Was she that weird girl who never went to class? I don't know - either way – fuck them. The last thing I need right now are more mismatched couples in my midst…

Lucius will likely marry that other Black cousin. At least that match I can understand. Her I remember well. She was all over him in our first year. God that's right! Lucius Malfoy knew me when I was a _child_ – would he know me now? I've changed so much…I'm not a timid bookworm – I stood up to Potter! I sneak out alone now. I have friends - I have a tattoo! I don't hide in the shadows anymore! I feel almost alive these days, almost like one of them...

Weird matches or not, I think I would love to see those guys again. Not only would I not feel nearly as intimidated by them as I once did, but I would actually have something to say to them now I think. But, what do we know of this other Wizard anyway? Isn't he _much_ older? Why does he want to spend his time with teenagers? There is something truly odd about all this…

Oh God this _record_. "Weeping Wall"…

~Friday – My Room – Sunset breaks storm clouds

Tonight we go. I put my coat on again. I feel weird to be wearing this graceful coat over such tattered clothes. But it feels so amazing. When I put my hands in the pockets it feels just like I am someone else. My reflection in Donovan's mirror. It's not me.

The sun is nearly gone. Such a dramatic sky. Storm clouds from the snow earlier still hang in the sky. This crack of clear sky on the horizon lets a fire red sun burns through. Red streaks of light mark the room. The others will be waiting. Still standing here writing. Streaks of red light on my face. I feel no fear and yet my feet won't move. I think I love this sky too much. Hypnotized by the sun. We have to go. I have to go.

~ Saturday – My room - Dark morning

Last night was all right. It wasn't much, as I had expected. Tisi indeed lit a fire. It was powerful enough to block out cold for miles it seemed. So we all were around it. Lucius was there, but he and some other guys were talking. I looked up to him so much when I was younger. It was really great to see him again. But he was talking to people in the older generation. I didn't feel right approaching him. Other than him, I just didn't care to talk to anyone who wasn't in our group. Avery though, he went about and talked to _everyone_.

Avery chatted with as many people in the older generation as possible. He spent a lot of time talking to another group of teenagers I didn't recognize as well. He even brought one of them over to with the rest of us - some dimwitted kid from Durmstrang. He was annoying, far too eager to befriend us.

Other than that I kept mostly to myself – to our group. Tisi sat next to me biting my ear. She didn't talk to anyone either – but she knew who they all were. She pointed out most of the older generation to me. She pointed out Rodolphus's wife to me. "Figures," I said. I'd been glaring at her – she looked like a Black. Wilkes thankfully looks nothing like her. I hate that he is related to them… But that Bellatrix, she's weird. She hung around him all night – not her husband but that guy. She just hung on him like Pettigrew does with Potter when Potter could care less about the kid. And he cared more about the snake on his shoulders than her. But she just kept right on trying. After that sad display I had no real desire to talk to any of them.

She pointed him out – she said his name, which I already forgot. Weird. I usually don't pay attention when they start talking about him. But I just realized I never even knew his name until that moment. I guess I was paying even less attention than I thought!

Funny. I just stared into Tisiphone's fire most of the night while she bit and licked my neck. No one noticed us, so we stuck off and snogged for a bit behind a tree. Sugar. Over-saturated poison-sweet lips… and that is what I remember above all else from last night…

After the older group left the fire, the rest of us stayed and drank for a while. I'm still a bit drunk now. Well the others had fun I guess… so than I suppose it was a good night.

~ Monday – Potions Class Cold and Windy

I'm so drunk right now. We were up drinking really late – and by late I mean we were late to class we were still drinking! What's funny - is that even drunk I can still brew these potions faster and better than anyone else. With all my spare time I brewed such a batch of Absinthe and I know what we're doing tonight!

~ Wednesday – Library – Night?

No idea how I woke up in the Library. Haven't been here since my sixth year honestly.

Wormwood is evil.

~Thursday – Great Hall - Night Sky

I guess I went to class today. For some reason, my work is done. Which either means, I'm _really_ good or …really bad! Or else it could mean that my friends are really good – or really bad! I don't know. I don't care how my work got done. It is done and that is what matters most - because now I'm off to give Patricia Lisorra a present for all she has done for me with her gifts from the Restricted Greenhouse….

~Tuesday – The Great Hall

Oh my God. I just re-read that past few entries - I don't even remember writing some of this! What is wrong with me! Everything is so out of control and I can't come down or find solid ground… I must somehow stop everything spiraling out of control around me.

Must master Sectumsempra as I have all my other spells. Wordless and wandless. Any spell so reliant on wood and incantations is practically useless. Imagine how good Langlock would be if people heard me speak it or saw me perform it with a wand.

I will regain control. I will focus all of my energy on mastering that – if for no other reason than to regain some grip on reality. Honestly, it is pathetic that I have not done so already. I've done it before. I know on that day – I somehow managed to cast it against Potter silently after he had disarmed me. It is possible – now I must learn to control it – and to control myself!

Must get a grip. Must focus.

God, there are entire days I don't even remember. The only reason I re-read these entries was to figure out what that hell has been going on. Where was I this weekend? Why do I have all these new records in my room - And why are all these Hufflepuffs thanking me for the green Cornish pixies!

~Wednesday – Charms

It's been eight days. I've not smoked up, drank, snuck out or snogged Tisiphone. There, Virtue. I have been so focused. I can consistently perform Sectumsempra wordless and wandless. I have been able to do so since Saturday. Still… I should practice more.

~Saturday – Common Room

She is the devil. I was going to study tonight.

I had been so well behaved for three weeks. I was going to study tonight. But I went to the Quidditch match with everyone... Up he went. I glared at him with such fury, as I always do. I knew she was looking at him. I almost wished I could infuriate her as I'd done during the last Quidditch Match. Anything to take Lily's gaze from him.

Just as I felt the rage racing though my veins about to explode into a violent scream – I felt someone's hands on my shoulders – my heart skipped – I jumped. I was about to turn around and hex whomever it had been, but she – Tisiphone ran her hands, gently down from my shoulders, slowly down over my arms.

I just breathed it in. I rolled my eyes back into my head. Her hands reached my wrists and held on. I leaned back into her, slowly. I let go. She was pulling me away…and I just went with it.

Tisi pulled me underneath the bleachers. She ran her graceful fingers across my face, closed my eyes and started kissing me. The next thing I knew, we were going at it. The roar of the crowd faded away and I could only hear my heart -my blood rushing through me. I was so afraid we would be caught and yet I didn't care. My heart, her heart, there was no crowd anymore. We wrestled. Her on top, then me - then her, then me again. She was pulling my hair, she slapped me hard, and I threw her down onto the dry old wooden floor. She smiled and laughed. I leaned back for a second – I didn't know what had hit me but she was on top again. She shoved my shoulders back and slammed me into the wood as I had her. Something about the impact, the crack of the heavy wood reverberating through my spine… I looked up at her. She rose up over me, dark angel of a woman. Long silk black hair fell over her pale frame, onto my shoulders – I pulled her hair hard as I came.

She cried out with sheer joy, and then moaned. She fell on top of me grinning and laughing as she did. She pressed her bare breasts into me, her chest still heaving. I was so grateful she'd torn off my shirt so that I could feel her flesh pressed directly against mine. She moaned into my ear. "Sev" she said…

She said something but I did not hear her words. My eyes rolled back in my head, I was still smiling - not thinking, paying attention to her words at all. I only closed my eyes and listed to the sound her raspy warm voice, and the feel of her body draped over mine.

"What?"

"Come to my room tonight. There is something I want to tell you," she said. Then she told me, she has this intense secret she wanted to share with me…. Everything changed, it was the first time I ever heard fear in her voice.

"Yes." I said. I'm not sure whose heart was beating harder, hers or mine. Then her tone turned more serious still. She made me swear I would never tell anyone – ever. She has never told this to anyone – ever. Her heart. Definitely hers. She stared into my eyes, and I saw her fear then. I _felt_ her fear. She meant it. It was the first time I have ever believed her so completely.

And now I am sitting alone in the Common Room. Almost time to go to her... I was going to study tonight. I was going to work on Sectumsempra tonight... Who am I kidding – I mastered that spell weeks ago. I've been using work as an excuse. Like I always do.

And I do want to know…


	9. Chapter 9

~Sunday – Common Room.

She told me.

What we did last night, I cannot even write.

Sick, sick - just unholy and _wrong_.

~Thursday - Transfiguration

Sin upon sin. We went out again last night – there was another massive meeting – that much I remember. We started drinking first this time. I don't remember how we got there, or back. I remember the fire, I remember Tisiphone and I sneaking away, I remember her dancing. I must have Disapparated a few times as well, because I have things in my room with me now… things that I know I left in Spinner's End. I _know_ I didn't pack all this stuff back in August.

This is all so strange and confusing... I am such a wreck. I have to write just to keep track of where I've been - and even that doesn't help. I have got to stop _doing_ this.

~Monday – My Room – Night 

I avoid mirrors, I always have. Sometimes I think I am not so hideous, but everyone has always called me ugly, _everyone_. I know they are right, for how can everyone be wrong? Maybe they are wrong. Maybe I have heard it said so often that I started to believe what they say… No! Of course they are not wrong. I'm hideous. My hair hangs over my face like some veil or a death shroud no matter what I do to it. I have an ugly nose and my skin is practically transparent. I'm a freak.

I know I am a freak, I know I am ugly but I wasn't prepared for it. Not today, not any day. I saw my reflection in Donavan Moore's mirror this afternoon. At first I did think myself not so horrid, for some reason but I looked closer and I suddenly remembered what Tisiphone had said about my eyes.

Dear God - I think she is right. My eyes are darker. I have hazel eyes! I do – I did. Yes I know my eyes change color - shifting always between green and brown but this is a bit much even for me! They _are_ much darker now. Is it just that I never noticed my eyes being so dark?

Can't be. I don't remember my eyes ever turning such a dark shade of brown. My eyes were light mahogany brown with hints of green but…. now they seem to be this… dark chestnut brown, no light, no hint of green at all. Dark eyes drained nearly of all color. What's wrong with me! What is happening to me! Oh God, I am sure this is some sign of all the sins I have committed. Some outward mark to declare my evil for the entire world to see…

~Thursday – Common Room - Night

I have been handed my chance to stop this madness! Oh there is much discussion among the guys about sneaking out for another meeting with that group of Wizards but I have far greater things to be concerned with!

This cannot be happening. I cannot believe it to be real. _All__ this __time!_ It is as if Fate has given me this gift. Only Destiny could explain such a thing. It seems too easy, so unreal but it is _really_ happening.

Slughorn announced there would be a contest tomorrow. Whoever could successfully brew the best Draught of Living Death will win a vile of Felix Felicis. No student has ever been successful he told us. Draught of Living Death – _the _potion I worked and reworked - over and over to get perfect. The potion I perfected beyond perfection in my zeal to drive out my feelings for Lily.

I know I can do it. I will win the vile of Felix Felicis!

Felix Felicis… But in truth, do I even want it at all? To use it myself I know is beyond wrong. Use it, and something good would happen, perhaps it would even bring Lily back to me. No! Never! I could _never_ allow that to happen – not now. My sins have been too great to accept such a grand reward so unfairly. Besides - with my luck, given that level of luck – and the entire school would fall down.

No my desires are far too dark to be given such a chance to succeed. That was never the reason this was meant to happen. No, I was _meant_ to win it so that I could give it to her. That was my desire all that time was it not? I wanted to be Virtuous – to do really well in class and have her see me as good and Virtuous – is this not that very chance? It is! In the name of God it is _that_ potion! What are the odds of such a thing? I will win, and give it to her, and that then is my chance.

But is it? I am so taken by this sense of destiny – and yet, this gnawing fear keeps me from joy. The very real fear that she would likely reject such a gift from me. She will.

What am I to do? Either way – I cannot have Liquid Luck. My luck is so bad - with Felix I could only curse that bad luck on others. So what should I do? Do I win? Shall I let Lily win – that would be the noble thing to do. I would be sure she would have it. But no student has ever before been successful… And Lily, for all of her gifts surely would not have spent her time devoted to such a dark solution – could she win? Surely she has better spent her gifts on healing draughts…

So what shall I do? Shall I give in to this overwhelming feeling - that this is a sign from the Universe? That this is a sign to trust in my studies and let go of my dark ways? Is this not the answer I was so praying for with each moment spent in devotion to hard work and study? It is _that_ potion. How then, when the universe announces itself so clearly am I to deny the will of Fate?

-Because Fate was never on my side. But still I cannot help but feel I am finally to be given a reward for all of my hard work. And maybe, just maybe Lily will... how could she – what shall I do?

Tomorrow. Whatever my decision it must be made soon. What will I do? Why must I always be so torn in this way?

~Friday – Potions – Sunlit morning

Fuck it. My mind is made up. Nothing can take me from this path now.

I've only to wait for Slughorn to finish explaining Felix Felicis to the class then I will have my revenge. Of courses this will take sometime to explain – because no one knows shit about Liquid Luck but me it seems. Idiots. Dunderheads all of them.

And she – and he. There we were outside of class waiting to go inside. There I was debating it, tearing myself apart… What shall I do, what shall I do? Shall I leave it to her to win –– when all the while – there they were - _snogging_. I looked up – not only were they snogging – but they were groping each other so perversely I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And worse, I couldn't believe what they were _not_ seeing!

Across the hall a group of second years were on their way to Charms and three of them stopped to harass another boy. All the yelling and pushing kept the older students from noticing the vulgarity on the other side of the hall. But everyone watched as the bigger boys pushed the little one back and forth to each other – yelling insults to him all the while. He dropped his books and they laughed. And those two – didn't even notice!

Right under their noses this happens. Are they not Head Boy and Head Girl? Is it not their responsibility to stop such behaviors and reprimand the offenders? Potter I would never expect to take such responsibility – but her? Did she honestly not notice?

Well I did. I pushed them off. They glared at me. Funny. I am older now and things have changed somewhat… but they could still smell the frightened boy in me - not so far off from having been picked on myself. They always know. They laughed at me - just the way Potter and his gang would - before they all ran off. I rolled my eyes. I pretended not to care – though in truth I still felt the sting, no matter how minor. I turned to the other boy and helped him to pick up his books. He looked up at me – grabbed his books the rest of his books and then ran. He looked, just as I had felt when in that position so many times. He looked mortified beyond belief. I tried not to look at him with pity. Teachers, students, they all stand by doing not a thing, they say nothing and then they look at you in that horrible way. I _hated_ it when people looked at me with pity when I was in that position.

And now I am in another position. I am – for once in the position to do something grand. For once – my pathetic devotion to school, isolation and devotion to schoolwork have given me an opportunity to do _something_. After all I have suffered, I am taking it my chance

~Friday – Great Hall - Sun

It is done. Felix is mine. It is with me now, tucked safely in my robes. The feel of solid hard glass against my chest. _I__ did __it._ And dare I say this but I am _drunk_ with power over the thing. And yet, I know this feeling will not last. I know this is foolish, but just for once I needed to win at something. I needed for once to be good….

My solution of the Draught of Living Death was finished before the rest of the class had even gotten up to adding the wormwood. All of them – even Lily fumbling and faltering with their caldrons as I raised my hand to tell Slughorn I had finished.

Slughorn was beaming – for once - at _me_. Lily - she looked at me. Blank stare – not impressed - but not in disgust either. Yes, she showed no emotion, but for once she was not looking down at me. And I tried so hard not to look at her as I was handed the precious golden fluid, even thought it was my deepest desire to see her happy for me – proud of me, just for once.

Tisi, she was happy. She clapped, as did anyone else in Slytherin. The rest of the class looked at me with shock and disgust. "How could Snivellus do such a thing," - but I did. I did it, and I am happy.

I am. Yet even as I write, I can feel my joy so swiftly slipping away. For now comes the real challenge… I must somehow bring myself to give it to her, when I am almost certain of the awful outcome.

Still – I was given this chance – this one last chance to get her to like me once again. I will wrap it and send it to her. I will use on of the school owls, for I haven't the courage to give it to her directly – but give it to her I must. I fear so much to do this. Please, please let this work. Please, let my dream to win her heart through my hard work succeed… This is my last shred of hope. Please don't let this die.

~Saturday – Common Room – Morning.

I sent it. I just sent it a few minutes ago and now I am full of dread. I will have no rest now until I know the outcome – and yet I fear to hear it. Can't write. Pace the room. I will walk around... Too sick and upset to do anything else

~Saturday - Great Hall

She sent it back.

Mary MacDonald came to me. Lily had asked her to send her to do it.

She said Lily had gotten very upset. "Snape," she told me several times, "she was really upset." I couldn't even look her in the face. I just stared past her shoulder. It was awful.

Her words stung. I was fighting back tears, and she must have seen – but she continued her explanation as she gently placed the vile in my hands. "Lily asked that you please not do anything like this again. She said to try and understand why." She closed my hand over the vile, and held onto my hands with both of hers. Then she – _Mary_ apologized. It was mortifying.

I just looked at her. She looked at me, nearly in tears her self. She looked at me with pity. "I'm sorry," she said again. She released my hands and left.

She looked at me with pity. I am such a fool…

~Sunday – Common Room Rain

Luck that I cannot give her… Love that I cannot give her... I have nothing else to write.

~Monday – Potions Class

I dare not look even slightly in her direction.

With my last remaining wish I have hurt the one I… that's it. I cannot dwell on her any longer. Enough have I sinned against Lily in my thoughts. Any thought of her is a sin. I cannot think of her any longer – for her sake.

~Tuesday – My Room Night

Just got back from Tisiphone's room. We went at it again. I love it when she binds my eyes. I don't want to see. I don't want her to see into me either.

~Thursday – Common Room – Full Moon

They've made plans to go out and see that guy again. I still don't care. They all sit talking excitedly. Tisiphone is with them, she and Evan seem unhappy, yet they are just as engrossed as the others…

All of them deep in conversation. Another important plot I am not a part of.

But I suppose… I should start to look forward to the evening as well. It takes would take my mind off of other things.

It would do me well to get out of this place for a bit. It would do me well to smile and laugh with them as we always do when we escape to Hogsmeade. Tisiphone has left them. She is across the room now. She smiles invitingly. Shall I give in? I will. Gladly.

~Friday – My Room Dusk

Getting ready to escape again. I am wearing my brocade coat once more. Once again, I feel not myself. I feel I am someone else. Tisiphone gave me a green cravat. She made it. The rest of my birthday presents she tells me are nearly done. I am still so uncomfortable at having gifts given to me. I must make it up to her somehow.

I'm dressed and nearly ready now. It's almost time to leave. There is no more color, only green, only the green in the tie she gave me. All black – my clothes my hair - black. Green is gone from my once hazel eyes. All dark brown now. Only a tinge of red remains.

Time to go.


	10. Chapter 10

~Saturday – Dawn

Everything is different now. I am back home in the dorm. I remember everything. I am not drunk for once. I am completely sober.

Everything was different when I left my room… This time, I was going to go with an open heart, this time I would mean it.

Every other time we have gone, I didn't care. I went along because I wanted to be with everyone. I never saw until now what they saw in him, but I see it now, and I wasn't ready - I wasn't prepared for what he would see in me.

Everything started the way it always did. The six of us snuck out, as usual we were the first to arrive in the woods. Tisiphone performed her charm, transfiguring her wand into a torch then lighting our bonfire with it. I never saw it for what it was, a sacred rite, the opening to our sinful ceremony. She is our dark priestess… and yet, it seems so ironic - for she brings light and warmth to the frozen forest.

The others arrived. Some I know, some I do know. Once most of the congregation had come, the Malfoy appeared looking far more regal in their robes than any of us in our finest ever could. They were followed by the Lestranges, who far outshined even them. As much as I hate that spoiled brat of a woman, that mask Bellatrix Lestrange wears is a work of art. They are all so impressive.

He finally arrived... He doesn't so much arrive – he appears as a vision – a wisp of smoke. Everyone applauded. But he put up his hands, smiled and bowed - shaking off the adoration. He beamed at everyone. Being ever so the gentlemen, he raised his hands once more to gently silence his followers. He began to make his way - gliding about the fire, his feet barely touching the ground, dancing as it were. His serpent was gliding about behind his steps.

He speaks softly in nearly poetic verse. We all stared transfixed. This time, I joined the others. I tried to care. I wanted to care. I was convinced it was not much - what he truly said, for I did not pay much heed to the words, just the delivery.

Finally the opening speech ended to more tumultuous applause – it was exciting – for them. I wanted something within me to stir, but it didn't. Once again, I sat with everyone, unable to let go and be in the moment. I felt nothing, only the distance between them and myself...

Finally the others broke into private conversation. This was normally the point in the ritual when Tisiphone would drag me away to snog. She sometimes seems to feel as awkward as I do at that fire. I am always so grateful to have someone to feel out of place with… Every time we have gone to those meetings, we have snuck off. We hide in the woods behind the same tree every time and go at it. This time, I felt so let down after failing to feel what everyone else felt, especially after I tried so hard. I was more than ready to pass the time away from the others with her, hidden by our tree locked in our unholy embrace.

I turned to her, she took my hand – but her face – a look of horror came across her face. She seemed gripped with some unknown dread. I couldn't understand what had come over her. Avery had taken hold of her other hand and was pulling her away. All he wanted was for her to meet Evan's father and someone named Nott or something. What was so scary about that? She told him she didn't want to leave me, I'm not sure why. I told her it was fine that she should go. I said I would wait for her. It was only an introduction really, how long could it take. She kept looking back at me when they walked away. What did she think I was going to do while she was gone? Snog someone else behind her back? Girls…

So I sat alone. I fidgeted with my coat, played with the sleeves, rolled them up and took my wand out from my right sleeve. I used it and set little twigs on fire, transfigured the tips of my boots to steel to pass the time. Something blocked out the firelight as I played, I wish I had realized sooner what had been going on. How foolish I must have looked. He stood before me. He had been looking down at me the whole time. I was sure he would laugh at my stupidity…

But he didn't.

I couldn't believe it. He just – looked down at me, and he knew. No Legilimens, I would have felt that – he just – understood. What he said…. _How_ he said it. I can still hear him as if he were with me in this room.

"_My__dear__boy__…" _his voice came through as this barely audible whisper. _"__Why __is__ it __that__ you__ come__ here __to __be __with __us, __and__ yet wander __in __your __mind __elsewhere? __Something, __distracts __you, __pains __you __from __a__ not__ – __so__ – __distant __past __does __it __not?__"_

All I could do was nod. My breath had been stolen. I had been staring up at him, completely transfixed as he spoke. It had never occurred to me that I would ever have to speak in his presence. My lips were frozen. I could not possibly manage speech. I kept staring at him. I was so overcome that I hadn't realized I had committed one of the greatest sins I could ever commit against myself. One that I have only committed out of necessity in the presence of Tisiphone. I had left my sleeve pushed up, my arm was completely exposed.

"_And __what,__my __son,__"_ he said looking down, _"__is __this?__"_ He gestured to my arm. He knelt down to me - reached out his hand to mine, and took my hand in his. He has such long fingers, his grasp was so slight - it could have been a woman who had taken my hand. Just as delicately as he had taken my hand, he twisted my wrist, turned my arm up to face him, and began examining the image.

Then he looked me in the eye and fixed me with his gaze. I stared back. The power of speech was still far beyond me. How could I speak to him? How could I possibly explain? I felt emotion begin to choke me. Tears flooded my eyes – I just started sobbing uncontrollably, it was horrible. Thank God no one else but him was there to see.

He stood up then, I looked up at him, not knowing at all what to think anymore. He looked down at me, raised out his arms and cocked his head to the side. The expression on his face, it wasn't pity. It was sympathy – as if he truly understood. I choked back a sob and fell as silent as I could. He turned his head to the other side, same expression - still looking at me with genuine understanding and then he spoke again.

"_My __dear __boy, __I __see__ – __you __come __before __me __battle __weary, __wounded__ by __love.__ – __And__ here__"_ he whispered, pointing with his long fingers to my arm, _"__here __is __the __scar __to __prove __it.__"_ I felt ashamed – I moved to cover it. I tried to speak – to apologize – I must have managed to say, "I'm sorry" – but he merely raised his hands, as he had earlier to stem applause.

"_No__ no!__"_ He spoke softly to stop my rambling, _"__no__ you __mustn__'__t __apologize__ – __for __you__ – __came __here __bravely__ with __your __heart __on __your__ sleeve, __as __it __were. __To __do__ that __took __courage__ – __to __admit __to __your __heartache __took __a__ strength __that __most __others__ – __sadly__ – __lack.__"_

He said, "bravely" – he said, "courage" – he said, "strength" – those are three words no one has ever used to describe me. _Ever_.

He continued, _"__I __understand__ you __see, __how __it __must __have __been __for __you__ – __in __that __school__… __You __must __have __been__ surrounded __by __students, __who __could __scarcely __understand __you, __let __alone__ match __your __Wizarding __ability__ – __and__ I__ am__ sure,__these__ – __inferior __children__ – __told __you__ – __that__ the __blame,__lay __with__ you.__"_

Again I was lost for words. He _knows_.

And he simply went on speaking, gesturing gracefully with his hands as he did, _"__Children,__ who __do __not __understand__ – __must__ mock. __It __is __their __nature. __It __is __all __they __have. __They __will __never__ match __you, __in__ intellect, __character __or __strength__ – __and__ so __they __must__ bring __you __down__ – __to __their __level. __They __will __tell __you, __that __you__ are __something__ you __are __not, __when __in __truth, __it__ is __they__ – __who__ are __the __failures.__"_

The power of speech returned to me. "Yes." Was all I could manage, but it was solid. My voice did not waver what so ever.

"_Yes,__"_ he repeated, _"__And __you __had __to __endure __their __cruel __torments __all __this__ time__ – __all__ the __while __suffering __a __love__ who__ left __you__ to __bear __her __image__ upon __your __flesh__ while __turning__ her __affections__ to __one __of __them __did __she __not?__"_

He _knows_! Again I had no words. But he did.

"_Yes,__" _he said,_ " __I__ too __was __young __once. __I__ too __endured __such__ – __such __difficulties__ – __but__ we __must __not__ let __them __stand __in __the __way __of __our __destinies. __In deed __we __do __not. __We __take, __that __which __has __harmed__ us, __and __we __use __that __to __make __us __stronger. __You__ – __dear __boy __are __wounded__ – __but __you __are __not __destroyed. __You __are__ here __with__ us __to __forget __the __pain __that __burnt __your __arm. __You__ are __here __to__ begin __your __new __life. __With __me__ you__ will__ achieve__ your __full __potential __as __a __great __wizard.__ I__ can __help __you __to __be__ greater __than __that__ – __silly __school__-__could__ ever __have __made__ you. __Now __tell __me __son, __are __you __Pure __Blood?__"_

"I'm half sir." I hated to say it. I hung my head in shame as I did so.

"_Aaaahhhh__"_ was all he said. No anger, than he asked – _"__On __which __side?__"_

"On my Mother's sir. She is Pure Blood Witch," I told him.

"_Aaahhhhh, __and__ the__ other?__"_ At this, fear and shame subsided. Rage.

"I don't – deal with him." I sneered and stared in fury into the fire. I nearly spit I was so sick with anger – at _that_ one.

"_I __see,__"_ I thought he would be as disgusted as I was, but he seemed even then to understand, _"__I __see__ – __it__ is __a __terrible__ tragedy__ – __that__ even __the __greatest __of __us __must__ suffer __an __imperfect __lineage. __And __yet, __there __are __those__ of __us, __extremely __rare __though __we__ are __-__ who __are__ so __exceptional __that __we __transcend __our __very __heritage. __For __we __are __greater __by __far__ - __than __any __of __those __that __bore__ us.__You__ – __like __me__ – __are __one__ of __those __exceptional __few __aren__'__t __you __boy?__"_

He was not asking me. He was telling me. "Yes," I said finally accepting everything he said about me. I felt – confident – I was no longer ashamed to look up at him. I held my head up – the first time in my life I can ever remember doing so. He seemed to see this.

He just beamed at me, _"__Son, __tell __me __your __name.__"_

"Severus – the Half Blood Prince."

He extended his hand to me, _"__Severus,__the __Half__ – __Blood __Prince, __I __am __Lord __Voldemort, __and __it __is __an __honor, __to __make__ your __acquaintance__"_

"Likewise," I told him, I was smiling.

"_There __now __Severus,__"_ he said releasing my hand and stepping back. "_You __heard __my__ speech __earlier__ then... __Have __you __made __up__ your __mind__ – __will __you __take__ the__ Initiation __Rites __with __the__ others __upon __our __next __meeting?__ Will __you __become__ one __of __my __most __trusted__ allies, __join __with __us __and__ become__ one __of __my __faithful __-__ one __of __my __Death __Eaters?__"_

No hesitation. "I will."

He smiled... He said a bit more – mostly about how pleased he was that I would join him. All I could think of was starting another life. I wanted it more than anyone could ever know.

But he knows – he _knows_!

Tisi came back a few minutes later. I didn't think it possible, but she seemed even more upset. Girls. She asked if I had agreed to become a Death Eater. I guess she was worried I wouldn't have the courage to do it with the rest of them... I told her. She didn't seem too surprised when she'd heard that I'd said yes to him. That made me feel better. Then she sighed and said something about how she'd better finish my birthday present. She still didn't seem herself. She seemed still quite upset. I can't imagine Nott must have said when they spoke. It is too bad The Dark Lord didn't talk to her. She would have felt a lot better if he had spoken to her as he had all the rest of us.

I can't worry about her right now. I have to prepare with the others for the next meeting. It all comes down to the next one. Everything depends upon it! That night – will be our Initiation… A new life – a death to the one I lead now…. Oh how I welcome it….

~Saturday – Night – My Room

I sat for most of the afternoon, planning with the guys in the Common Room. The date is already set of course – but our escape form the castle must be much more carefully coordinated this time. Can't have any of the other Slytherins see us leave now.

I cast Muffliato as we sat speaking. We cannot risk being overheard. Who knew that spell would become so useful when cast against others. And here I was stupidly using it to keep myself free from their voices… I am glad we have the use of it now. We cannot be overheard. We _cannot_ be seen sneaking out any longer.

This is no longer some childish game - us going out to Hogsmeade to hide lead weights in unguarded brooms. No more dropping dragon eggs onto drunken bar patrons – we are part of something _real_ now. This is far bigger than any of us.

~Tuesday-Night Common Room

Too many people in the Common Room. Muffliato of not, we've broken off our discussion to be safe. Our plans are almost perfect now. Just as well we stopped planning... I can't concentrate. Tisiphone is eyeing me from across the room. She asked me to come to her room tonight. I've not really seen her since Friday night in the forest. I shouldn't go – should stay with the guys and plot things out a bit more.

Then again, it would do me well to alleviate my frustrations. I have been getting tense and anxious again. We should be fine – our plans are fairly solid, and we still have time. Might as well go to her. That and I need a drink. Think I still have some Absinthe under my bed. Hopefully Tisiphone still has some of the Lisorra bloom under hers.

Fix me with your serpent stare again Tisi. I see you. If you think you want me, very well. I'm yours.

~Wednesday – Just before Dawn – My room

Another sky - dark black turns to dark blue. Another dawn, another sunrise I will see after another sleepless night. I haven't come down yet. Must write or I will surely wonder later why my robes are ripped and torn.

Funny, in fifth year, I used to frantically write to vent my anger. Now I frantically write so as not to forget. I can't keep anything straight anymore. This book is the only constant I have in my life. I lay awake and dream of Lily – still. I hear her voice, I see her in my mind and I shutter. I want to run. I don't even know what I feel anymore but the need to run. Some things I am beginning to want to forget.

But these shredded robes. Its funny, I kind of like it. I look like someone the Muggles would call Punk. Fitting. All the Muggle music we played last night. "Station to Station", "Led Zeppelin VI" - Oh last night... That's right, last night over now – but the pain isn't. Oh my body…how it aches and will surely grow more soar as the day progresses.

We - having gone so long with out release… Must not let her – or myself go so long with out release. I don't think we've ever been so frantic or violent with each other. I'd barely crossed the threshold and she was on me. I managed to shut the door and she literally tore my clothes off. She was shouting something at me – what it was I couldn't understand, she was however, shredding my clothes in her fury. I didn't hear her I just shoved her back a moment – not to hurt her, I just to go off. She stared up at me burning with as much lust as was I.

We froze – then launched at each other – but I was quicker. I grabbed her tight frail frame – I lifted her from the ground and kissed her. She pushed herself up on my shoulders - I grabbed her by the waist and held her up above me. It seemed she flew - and for a moment I felt almost – but I couldn't hold it – she couldn't it either. I released her just as she collapsed back into my arms almost in tears. We both let go and gave into our fear and anxiety. I don't know how, but I knew she was in the same place as was I emotionally.

Hysteria. As if our lives depended on undressing the other as quickly as possible. Practically on the ground – I ripped her sweater in half. My robes already torn and across the room she ripped my shirt open and tried to force it down my arms while I tore open her shirt. Even as she pinned my arms with my sleeves forced my hands under her shirt and grabbed her breasts hard. I remember hitting my head against something solid. It hurt. I remember liking it… the next thing I knew we were naked.

Kneeling over her on the floor. Drenched in sweat. Fluid, venom, blood – she was digging her nails in me as if to tear my flesh as she had my clothes - I went off on her harder. We both came. We bit each other then started drinking and fucking again. After that it becomes hard to remember. I do remember blissfully breathing in a hit as I was inside of her then passing the pipe to her…it was perfect. I don't remember much, just coming hard…my eyes rolling back in my head… I floated there, weightless and lost in the clouds…. We were lying there, torn and a mess on the stone floor of her room. Dear God what has become of me…what has become of us?

"_If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break. _

_When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay_

_Crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good…"_

Darkness. A blur of rain and stars outside. Falling.

…I know we went at it several more times. We were still at it just before dawn. I remember laughing as we dressed. Both of us attempting repairing charms on our ruined robes – neither of us coherent enough to accomplish the act. We just laughed and laughed. I'm still soar now. We really can't go that long in future with out fucking. Now I'm off to class, with a robe full of rips. I scare myself sometimes and sometimes, I love my life. I am in love with it now, even though I have class in less then an hour… I just need to even out first – I will be knocking a lot of Absinthe into my morning tea.

~Wednesday – Potions Class

Oh morning. Oh my god what this morning has been... Forget the tea I just drank Absinthe straight. Not that I needed it. Tisi and I were both still so drunk when we got to The Great Hall. Her hair always so perfect was a wreck. "Did I do that to your hair?" I asked. Everyone laughed.

Evan laughed the most, "And this is why you can't have nice things Severus", he said and we all laughed. Everyone always laughs when we show up disheveled or drunk to class or breakfast. But Avery was annoyed for some reason. I'd say it was weird, but then again, we'd never been so disheveled before! Tisi at least changed some of her clothes – but mine were barely staying on. It was so funny.

To think of it now Avery had a good point, only Evan would do something so foolish, but we were too drunk to think better this morning. Avery ordered Wilkes to repair our clothes and straighten our hair out, which he did quite well. Well enough for me, or so I thought. We split up to go to class but I don't remember why. Then that fuck Lupin came up to me.

"Severus" he said to me in a snide, obnoxious manner, "Do you realize you're missing several buttons from your robes?" I was so mad. Even for being the better of the four - he is such a prat. I sneered at him – but he just had do keep going, "I realize you've not put a lot of stock into your appearance over the years, but you might want to considered that we will be graduating soon. You'll want to put your best foot forward and not wander about in such unkempt clothing."

I lost it. I grabbed him at the shoulders, pulled him up by his robes and threw him into the wall. I got into his face and screamed. "Fuck you Lupin! – Shut your fucking mouth and wipe that look off your face - or I'll do it for you!"

I exploded and once I'd started screaming I couldn't stop. " Go on laugh all you want about a missing fucking button! You wouldn't laugh if you knew the reason it was ripped off in the first place. That's right – a woman tore that bloody button off of me while we were fucking last night! Where were you? Still playing animal farm with your fucking friends! Maybe Lupin – you'd get a woman of your own if you weren't so busy carrying Potter and Black's books around! Or maybe – no woman wants you for fear that you would shred more than just her clothes - you fucking hazard to humanity. Get out of my face."

I released him then stormed off to class. I'm still shaking. I'm still so mad over what he said to me but I am more shocked by what I did. What came over me? Since when do I attack like that? And yet, that attack… Was that attack not the very thing I have wanted to do all this time? Wasn't that why I stared writing? I wrote because I could not do what I wanted to do – which was to scream like that when I was a frightened child two years ago? I'm not that child now – I was able to scream just now so why am I still shaking? Why am I still afraid when I have finally found the courage to speak what has been burning inside of me all this time? Is this not what I wanted?

It is. That was my wish – I've done it. But, now that I've done it I feel weird. Just like kissing and sex… nothing is what I imagined it would be. I guess I'll get used to it.

Still, the nagging thing I can't shake is the look that I saw in his eyes. I know that look... for - it used to be mine. He is cursed. He is tainted – like me. Yes he has the protection of Dumbledore, but… he is like me, isn't he?

Oh God, I do feel bad for what I've done! I shouldn't, knowing he has shown no remorse for what he has done to me over the years. But I have my strength to scream now. So what if it is not what I imagined? I'll get used to it. I have to, I have to accept it and now dwell on it…

~Friday – Common Room – Grey Rain Rain Rain

One week. Seven Days, in seven days. It is going to happen. Silly to fear the so-called Dark Arts now. Not after what we did last night – again. What we've been doing. Letting her wrap herself around me in that sinful manner. Sins against nature, forget our old trespasses. And now my body hurts in ways that no mortal should ever feel after fucking. Well, at least now we have the presence of mind to remove our clothing with a bit more care.

Dear God - what are we doing? Why am I letting her do that to me? I know its is starting to affect me. I feel drugged. She's lucky I like to feel sick and drugged. She can do it all she wants. Let her blind my eyes and bite me… just need to be ready for next week. And I will be.

~Wednesday – Potions Class – Storms

Almost went to her room last night, but I knew better. Friday is too near to risk going to her again. Must be sober for it. Must not let her get to me. I see what she's doing. Wicked woman, she's trying to make me too sick to go. That's it. She wants all the glory for herself. She's jealous because The Dark Lord spoke to me and not to her. She thinks, that she can slip me her poison and keep me incapacitated as her slave just a little while longer. She thinks, that if she does this - then I will not be well enough to go to The Initiation - then I won't be able to become a Death Eater and then she will and she will be that much further above me still! Oh no - No more of that. I won't let her.

No more of Tisiphone's evil. Done. One night off and already the toxin neutralizes in my veins and my thoughts begin to clear. She will not poison my thoughts as she has my soul. She wants me to be sick. She wants me out of the way… they all do. I see everything for what it is now. That right, I'm in Potions class, it is Wednesday and all that matters is what happens on Friday.

All that matters is what happens on Friday. -Now I just have to stop smoking up and I'll be good.

~Friday Morning – The Great Hall

Tisiphone stopped me in the Common Room. She said she wanted to see me before we left. She asked me if I had been avoiding her. "Of course not." Even I am amazed by my new found ability to outright lie to her face – or anyone's for that matter. Oh what I have become…

But she said she had to give me the rest of my birthday presents. I completely forgot. I agreed to meet her just before lunch. Perhaps I was being a little overly cautious with her. Perhaps… but I am still not letting my guard down…

~Friday – My Room – Late Afternoon - Cold

I don't have much time… but writing in my journal has become part of The Ritual now. I must do it to mentally prepare myself before leaving for The Initiation. I have much more to do this time. Tisiphone gave what she has wanted to give me...

She gave me new robes, much like the ones the Malfoys wear, those she bought me – the other gift she made for me, or had made for me rather.

My Death Eater Mask. Everyone in our gang now has one now. The older generation – their masks are skeletal, but ours are in the style of those worn by the Lestranges. She it turns out - designed all of them. Wilkes's father forged them. Amazing, I feel so blessed to be permitted into this family. Tonight it will be official.

It cannot be done soon enough. Despite my denial of what I saw, it was no drug-induced hallucination. This afternoon, I saw them – the Patronus pair galloping along together at the edge of the forest. The Doe and the Stag, together.

Kill me.

Take me in – take me into the family Please take me away. I am beyond ready.


	11. Chapter 11

~Saturday – My Room – Just before dawn

One moment of hesitation but it was over before I could process the thought – I was taken into the Death Eaters in a heartbeat and that was it, it was done.

It wasn't at all like the last time. Light filled my body. I felt no pain, just life flooding into me. I had an out of body experience and I returned to earth to produce a Patronus.

Last night was nothing like that. It hurt.

It still hurts. I can't write about what happened.

I feel about to pass out. Normally getting back is a pleasant blur. It was a blur but this time, staggering back with the others was painful. It was awful getting back and in through the window – every moment hurt. I could not wait to get back. Even the rest of the night after The Initiation... I don't know. Nothing happened. There was talking but I feel too sick, splitting headache and nauseated. Normally I can drink, smoke, fuck - stay out until dawn and feel fine. This isn't like me - I've never been this sick. We only drank a little after The Initiation…

Even still, I am far too sick to record it, and I'm not even sure of… But we went. I held out my left arm. We all did. Fortunate then that I chose my right arm for the first one – but I held out my arm to him. He pointed his bone claw of a wand at my arm – the moment it pressed into my flesh I felt the searing pain of it. I could hear the tumult around me but it sounded muffled and weird – I felt sick and drunk with out benefit of alcohol. I didn't feel like I was leaving my body. I felt – now that I think back on it – that I was _trapped_ in my body with no way to escape the pain. I wasn't floating – I wanted to fall to my knees but I fought to stay upright no matter how weak my body felt. The older generation – Rabastan, Rodolphus, Lucius - I felt all of their eyes upon me. I tried so hard to keep my face straight so as not to seem afraid or register the pain.

I remember thinking how much I wanted him to stop – to be done with it so it the pain would lesson at least, but I looked down and it was over. He was already onto Evan and my arm felt just as bad as it had under the pressure of his wand.

I didn't want to look to my friends. I didn't want to see it done to Evan whom he branded after me. I couldn't bear to see it done to Tisiphone, when after Evan he turned to her. I thought I'd known Dark Magic before. But what was done to our arms – that was Dark Magic in its truest and most terrible form. It was powerful, and it was horrible. Now the indelible Dark Mark is burned onto all of us. What does that say about us? We are marked….

Dark, evil. So says everyone else. No, I won't give in. I'm just tired and hung over is all. I'm just not thinking straight. So I don't feel elated after receiving the Dark Mark. So what if I feel no better after having become a Death Eater. It will just take getting used to, that is all. I'm just over wrought. I need to sleep. Just close my eyes and sleep for a little while. When I wake up, everything will be all right.

~Saturday – Common Room – Rain and Snow

I was in the mist of a terrible nightmare this morning when Donovan woke me up. What I dreamed, I cannot recall. Whatever it was, he said I was crying out incoherently in my sleep. Apparently I've been doing this a lot lately. He said I've taken to tossing and turning violently in my sleep, muttering things that no one can understand. They tell me that all the other times they had found me crying out so horribly in my sleep, they just let me be because they didn't know what to do. But Donovan said, he had never seen me in such distress…

I don't even want to think about that right now… I've just been told by Avery and Mulciber that we are to go to another Death Eater meeting - by the end of the week! So soon! There is no time to plan – a messy escape this will be at best.

I should go to breakfast. I should eat, but I just can't bring myself to think about food. I have difficulty enough forcing myself to care to eat on normal days but the very thought of even being near The Great Hall disgusts me so. I still feel sick. I think I'll go back to sleep – now that the room is empty – now there is no threat that I will speak something horrifically revealing in my sleep for the others to hear.

~Sunday Night – Common Room – Wind Storm… 

I woke up an hour ago. I have never slept for so long in my life. Tisiphone wants me to stay with her in her room tonight. What does she mean stay? Does she mean stay – the whole night? I've never done that before. I always leave. I shouldn't even go for an hour… but why deny it. I want to do sick sick things…

~Thursday – The Great Hall

My head is swimming. I've gone about in a fog all week. I need to get a hold of myself. Must be focused Friday – but that's tomorrow. I hope the others help… I am so lost.

~Saturday – Midmorning – My room.

Just woke up. I know we went last night. I vaguely remember it. I know I had sex with her in the circle…her scent is on me still. But…Evan's smell on me too - and so is Mulciber's. I'm not sure what's worse, knowing that we all had sex, or the fact that I just don't care.

~Monday Morning – The Great Hall

No idea. No clue how I woke up that Common Room this morning – but I'll say this: I may bleed Green – but I love those Hufflepuffs!

There is nothing a Hufflepuff won't do to help. They share everything - Puffs are great. Who else would so graciously hold back your hair? I mean – really Patricia didn't even flinch when Evan vomited like that. She took care of him, smiled laughed and offered him water. No one mocked, they were just – happy. They just played another Fleetwood Mac record and brought out more weed for everyone… _everyone_…

Oh dear _God_ they know how to fucking party. There is nothing a Puff won't do…

~Tuesday – Potions Class – Partly Cloudy

Oh dear God, I just remembered something. I really hope that was dream. I'm so terrified, I really I don't think it was...

Last night I was in Tisi's room. I was really drunk, but I can clearly remember it. She asked me - "Sev, what is that book you are always writing in?" I don't think she was asking about a schoolbook.

Dear God she wasn't, because I don't write in schoolbooks anymore, only this one.

What did I tell her? All I remember was both of us laughing! Dear God I was so high on Fire Whiskey and The Lisorra Pot, and I am fairly certain that in my drunken stupidity I told her what it was that I've been writing. Fuck Fuck Fuck I did.

Oh fucking God if anyone were ever to read my journal… All of my work on Occlumency – all I have done to seal up my heart and block others out. Just imagine _her_ getting inside my head and my heart…

-But _she_ was so drunk! I mean, she was really, really drunk. Perhaps Tisi will have been too drunk even to remember that we spoke of it… God I hope so. She like me must forget most of the things that happen when we are high. Oh God - everything I've written in here….

Oh so what! What does it matter now – I'm _still_ drunk! I really don't care! Honestly - who cares! I'm such a fuck up of a human being, does it really matter? You know what I'm not scared. I poured such a potent batch of Concealing Solution onto this book in my sixth year. Even before that this thing was hexed to High Heaven - no one will ever read it. So I'm free to write, as I will.

And I all I want to write now is that I am still, really really really high from last night – and I like it.

~Wednesday Night Astronomy – Starless Night

I can't believe I wrote that yesterday. I don't care if anyone reads my journal? I'm really losing it.

Get it together Severus.

~Tuesday – The Great Hall – Spring Sunlight

I thought this would all make me feel better – being committed to the Death Eaters – to him. It doesn't. I only feel more conflicted. One mark burns me - the other pains me with guilt. I am afraid in one world and rejected by the other.

And now all I want is to be bitten. I'm such a wreck.

~Friday – My Room - Dusk

In my room, barely prepared but we're leaving soon. It's getting harder to write, I can't see straight. I'm still really fucked up from being with her the past few nights. Ice bright amethyst eyes – long sleep black hair - sweet saliva…. I want her. I don't care.

I can't see much. I might as well still be blindfolded… Time to go, so it is.

~Saturday Morning – Common Room – Fog

We were out for a very long time last night – we left the woods and the fire. It was weird. It was really, really weird. I'm beginning to think Lucius is not such a great guy…

~Sunday – Common Room – Spring showers

Nightmares. All night I dreamed the most horrific things - didn't need Donovan shaking me awake to tell me that. All these terrible nightmares I keep having… When I wake up I'm not sure if they are dreams or actually memories. I am so afraid.

~Monday – The Great Hall - Sun

The whole school is different. Everyone moves away from Avery and Mulciber – the other students, they are afraid. I've seen that before, but not like this. People have even treated _me_ with respect - it's just so wrong. I don't like it. I know its wrong.

What's going on! What am I doing – this isn't my life - I want my life back!

~Tuesday – Transfiguration – Storm

Remembering last night. Can't concentrate on class. I can't stop thinking about it. She and I – are we like – him – and her? God I think we are. We are. It's awful to think on it.

~Thursday – My Room

Its true. My fears are realized. Donovan's mirror. My eyes are black. All this sin in me – I am destroyed from within. My eyes will never clear now. The blackest eyes…

And I cannot see….

~Thursday – PotionsClass-Sun

I must have missed a lot of classes. Even the typically oblivious Slughorn has been pointing out my many absences form class. He started to say something again Monday - but Avery and Mulciber pulled him aside after class. I don't know what exactly it was that they said, but I know they threatened him. Oh dear God, please tell me they didn't Imperious him!

They must have…He has been acting weird ever since. And he certainly hasn't said anything to me. My friends _are_ bad. As much as I can't stand Slughorn at times - Is this what I really wanted? I wanted years ago to not get in trouble for every little thing. I wanted the freedom that Potter and his friends have… but if this is what it takes… I don't I want it anymore…

Evil…

Are we really as evil as everyone says?

~Friday – The Great Hall – Sun

I'm sick again. I don't remember last night, and I didn't write anything so I don't know what I did last night… but that is over now and I could care less.

It is really warm today; first time spring has ever filled me with such dread. We are going out tonight. I don't need my coat anymore. I will wear the shear black robe she gave me. She says it makes me look like an angry angel when it catches in the breeze. Angry angel? I suppose. Dark angel - with the flowing black dragon wings of my robes... That I could see - that I am.

A Death Eater, a dark, angry angel. A fury.

–Why does time seem to speed up so much?


	12. Chapter 12

~Saturday – My room – Dawn but there is no sun

It's funny to think that after all the horrors I have seen there are still things that can surprise me. Once again we left for a meeting once again the rituals performed and there we were gathered around the fire. There are a lot more people now – so many more Death Eaters have joined our ranks – but everyone as wears masks these days, and it is hard to know who everyone is. I don't care who anyone is really. I'm more concerned with avoiding that clingy Karkaroff kid then anything else. Honestly, what do I have to say to any of them? They are all so full of plans and schemes. They all believe with such profound, creepy conviction. I didn't care to hear any of it…

I was back to my old habits. I left the circle feeling an outcast. Once again I did not belong to something I so wished to be a part of. But I find more comfort sitting off to the side watching them all from the tree line. I'm quite content to watch alone from afar.

So when my solitude was broken - by Bellatrix of all people - I did nothing to hide my aggravation. Still she stood by my side. I sat, staring unblinking at the fire and those around it, refusing to look at her. I finally chanced a glance at her – she too was transfixed with the same blank stare. Finally she spoke.

"You see this all as silly," she said, still staring, still not moving.

"I never said that," I told her flat out. I do - but I would never dare say such a thing. Was this some test? What was she playing at? I didn't care I just kept staring – trying to ignore her.

From nowhere, deadpan - with no feeling at all she said to me - "You still love her."

"What?"

"That girl who's mark you bear on your other arm," She said it so callously.

"I do not," How dare she.

"You do," she said so calmly.

Rage. I stared at the fire - resolute in my heart- "I hate her." I said. I meant it

"But that's not what's eating you boy is it?" She said with the voice of woman wise beyond her years, "What keeps you up at night – is the gnawing fear that you no longer love her."

How did she know? I always thought her to be a lose canon, just moments from a nervous breakdown. She is always cackling and dancing about when _he_ is around. How is it such a lunatic could turn so, conscious? How is it that she is the only one who is sensitive to such things!

I was no longer staring at the fire – I was staring at her. All that time her face was serene. Her eyes saw well past the fire and the Death Eaters – well past the woods and through to the greater part of the universe. She knew how I felt all this time – than suddenly a smile came over her face.

"Well cheer up bitch," she said grinning, "If you hate her that much, than you still love her. You can not truly love someone with out wanting to kill them at some point."

I could only stare at her in awe – she then glazed over and left me. Though she still stood feet only from me, her thoughts had gone far away.

Then I suddenly saw her for what she had always been to me. She is a kindred spirit. I saw it in her eyes. She pines for someone and suffers just as deeply as I do. For so long, I saw her as nothing more than spoiled woman, happily married to a wealthy man. I thought her callous from her wealth – no responsibility and free to be as insane and foolish as she wished. Suddenly I was looking up to her – as one who had gone before me. She understands love. She understands loss for she has lived it.

It is not her husband she pines for.

~Sunday Night – My Room – Full Moon.

Just back from Tisiphone's room. Just as I left, she asked me again if I was OK with it. I lied – and said I was. I don't know. I'm so oversaturated with toxin and indifferent to everything. God sleep... I just want to sleep like the dead and not dream at all…

~Thursday – The Great Hall – Sun

I've been so fucked up I haven't been to class in three days. Donovan keeps pestering me. "Go to Madam Pomfrey," he says. "I'm worried about you," he says

Shut up. I can take care of myself. So I got up – and went to class – it was the only way I could think to get him to shut up. I slept on the desk. I don't even care if anyone sees me.

~Friday – Transfiguration – Not sure

I know I should stop. My body can't take much more - but I went to her last night and let her do it again. I have to. This gnawing anxiety that grows in me with each passing day is unbearable.

I think I am in History of Magic now – I wrote Transfiguration but… Donovan is right of course. I should go to the Hospital Wing. But what am I supposed to say! – "Well, you see Madam Pomfrey, my girlfriend is an unregistered Animagus - she turns serpent and bites me – and I am likely to die from her venom-"! Shall I say that?

Honestly!

~Monday Night – Back in My room

Donovan and Tristan carried me up to the Hospital Wing. Donovan said I passed out while I walked across our room. I have no memory of this. He said he couldn't wake me, so he got Tristan and they carried me up. Sure, they didn't say anything to Pomfrey – but how _dare_ they! Why couldn't they just let me be?

Fucking Madam Pomfrey I woke up and found her trying to check my heart as if she has any right to do so. I don't care if she is the nurse she has no right to unleash her perversion upon me. Leave me alone – trying to get my shirt off – why so she too can see my tattoos and all the bite marks? She said she was trying to clean the blood but I wouldn't let her. "It's not mine" – I told her. I lied and said that I had been bitten by a snake out by Hagrid's and that I had killed it.

She rolled her eyes at me. "Nonsense Severus! You are far too intoxicated for one snake bite," she said, "You've been at that awful brew the Ravenclaws make from the Adder venom. I know a high from the Serpent Draught when I see it." What? But she went on rambling, "Why those students make such a thing I will never understand. Always showing off you teenagers are… Thank goodness that venom isn't lethal or even very potent. I thought it confined to Ravenclaw but now it has spread to Slytherin I see."

Yeah that's it…. I've been, drinking. I told her that, I rolled my eyes at her and said I'd stop drinking it.

She said something like – "Well I hope you do – all of you." and with that she let it go – thank God. Still, I had to spend the whole weekend in the Hospital Wing as well as part of today. She wouldn't let me leave even after I assured her I felt better. I had to miss class… so it wasn't all bad…

~Tuesday – Potions Class – Sun

Donovan came back into our room last night looking scared. He knew. I was so mad – I wanted to attack him, but somehow I didn't. I only sat there, as angry as I had been with him all weekend, as much as I had been plotting my revenge – when I saw him, I lost the heart to do it. I just told him something about having been poisoned…

"I'm sorry," he finally said, "I didn't know what was wrong with you. None of us knew what to do, we were really scared," It was a fair point. I too would have freaked out if he had fallen down dead as I had.

He went to a drawer and brought me a box. He opened the thing and took three stones from inside… Bezoars. He handed them to me and said, "You should keep them with you, you know – just in case."

What? How does he know! He Probably fucks her too.

~Sunday – Outside by the lake – Sun

Hot spring day. We are all outside. I'm really tense. Exams are a week away but I'm not afraid to face them. I'll do fine.

I have been avoiding her. I told her that I needed to study. She was acting concerned. She asked why I had been in the hospital wing but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction. I told her it was something I caught from Donovan.

I'm beginning to feel almost as I used to. All this sobriety - I can no longer ignore my feelings - all my fears and anxiety of late… It's been awful, and I have finally come to understand exactly why I am so terrified. I am forced to admit to it but I cannot ignore it any more. There are only a few more weeks left. Such an uncertain path awaits me, and yet, there is the certainty in it - and I don't have the heart to even consider the thing…

Surrounded by sunlight, flowers and laughter. The guys are all here with me, half studying – half happily goofing off. I sit here ripping up leaves and grass my nerves get the better of me. There is nothing for me to laugh about anymore.

-I walked away from the others just now. I can't keep writing this in their presence.

My fate, my dark destiny – that's not even the problem. I cannot bear it. I cannot write it, or even think it. My stomach is full of knots – I can't eat or breathe. My hands shake – I grow sick and dizzy at the very thought of it. My eyes flood with tears when the pang of it hits me. I bite back my sobs and chase off the thought but in the end I cannot deny it. In Fifteen days this will end, and I will never see her again.

All this time I was so miserable. I never stopped to think on how good I had it. No matter how awful my life was here, I could still pass her in the hall. I could still look upon her beautiful face – what will I do when I can no longer see the light in her eyes -

~Sunday Night – My Room

I had to go inside. I had to sob for a while – sob and dissolve into my hysterical terror while all the normal people were outside and cheerful in the sun. But I'm fine now. I am. I keep reciting recipes for potions in my head and try not to think about nothing else. Its not working as well as it used to, but I am at a loss completely. I don't want to think about anything… just sit here – recite precisely how much Pomegranate is needed – four and a quarter ounces, then simmer, stir six times clockwise then add the Belladonna…

~Tuesday – Common Room - sun

Everyone is talking about what Rodolphus has done. He is a monster. I want nothing to do with him.

~Wednesday – The Great Hall – unseasonably hot

I have received my orders. Avery passed them on to me. I am to be one of The Dark Lord's spies. He needs as many people as possible to keep watch over the area surrounding the school, so I am to be one of the spies in Hogsmeade until further notice. I am not to tell anyone, nor am I - or the other spies to know each other. Weird.

Still, it's the best possible position I think. Rodolphus and Lucius… it is sick what they do. The others aren't like that. My position will enable me to avoid those two. I'll steal secrets and lies. I don't care. Its nothing to me… All of this is so stupid and pointless. And yet, I am part of something. I am needed by someone…and that _is_ the point in the end is it not?

I don't know. Maybe all this is for the best. I don't know. I don't know anything anymore.

~Thursday – Common Room - Sunsets

My heart won't stop racing. My hands won't stop shaking. I cannot swallow or breathe. Everyone else is afraid to face their exams and I wish I were but that is not what frightens me. I want to be fearless in the face of this…

I will tell myself that I fear to fail my exams. Staring at my book – the same page for an hour – seeing not the page or words at all. I am studying – I am studying. I swear I am studying.

Tisiphone enters the room. Now I must leave. I just remembered how much I hate her.

~Friday –Afternoon Outside - Overcast

Last day of N.E.W.T.s. I've managed to stay sober and away from her long enough to complete the exams. I'm not sure how I managed, I'm still not quite right. I can feel it. But I did just fine on the exams. This school's standards being what they are, I know I passed everything. I know I will get high marks. In truth, I haven't had to try for ages. I am fine in class, it is everyone else struggles. Who cares? Classes mean nothing now.

Still, the Potions exam today was infuriating. We had to create an antivenom. I managed to do it quite well – but she - Tisiphone did a phenomenal job on her antivenom. But then she would, wouldn't she? Bitch. Was that her plan all along – to use me as a test subject?

Fuck her. Fuck Donovan. I will carry Bezoars now – just to spite her. They work just as well against venom as they do poison – so fuck her and her antivenom. And fuck Lily too. I hate everyone _so_ much. As much as I am so angry with Tisiphone – at least I still had the heart to be happy for her when Slughorn praised her so highly when she completed the exam. I saw the look on her face when the approval she has so greatly needed all these years - was finally given to her. I understood that feeling because that's what happened to me when I brewed the Draught of the Living Death. Lily barely – I can't. I can't I cant go on like this. My fury will get the better of me and…

I have only a few days left. I can't go on like this. I will never see her again – James will take her away from me and all that is left in me will die. I have but a few days to breathe and than its over.

~Friday Later Evening – Common Room

"Sev, now that exams are over, come to my room?" Well I've no excuses now do I?

"Come to my room-" – I hate her. I hate how she says it to me with that _voice_ while she lets her black hair fall onto my neck – how it slides off my neck and my chest as she pulls away…

And she leaves me and she saunters off leaving me to watch her from behind as she walks away – that perfect tight body of hers, the way the small of her back curves into her perfect ass and I'm going to say no to that? Fuck writing.

~Saturday – My Room - Morning – Black Sky – no sun

I woke up an hour ago. No one else is up yet. I can't sleep, as usual. Since then, I have been laying here thinking... I am her slave.

I didn't even want to go to her last night – but she asked and I came. I have no will to say no to her. She owns me. I would not have been able to stand before him - not as I was… A Half-Blood of such low birth in distressed old clothing. But she gave me new robes and dressed me as one of them. She raised me up and placed me where I am now – with _them._

She owns me. I am her slave. Tonight, we leave again for another meeting. I don't want to leave. It will be the last meeting to occur while we attend school. There is less then a week left of school can't I just stay here?

She might as well lead me there tonight on a leash. She could put her blinders on me. She wants to – I heard her through my extremely drunken state. I _heard_ her! She was crying out something insane to Evan. She whimpered something to him about how she had wanted to put blinders on my Death Eater Mask – the one she had made for me. She wanted to but – Wilkes's father wouldn't let her or some bullshit. I am so sick of all this. Yes, shut my eyes again Tisiphone. Blind me so I will be further incapacitated and at your mercy. That's how you always want me isn't it?

~Sunday – My Room – Sunrises

We all gathered around fire again last night. Everything was the same. I felt disconnected, and Tisiphone had long since disappeared into the fray. I snuck off alone into the woods, with out her. I sat peering out from the tree line, hidden by a veil of leaves. I watched as he arrived with that serpent around his neck. It has been bothering me for some time now, when I think on their relationship. It has been so upsetting to me, because I have come to realize just how alike we are.

I think back on all those nights, standing in naked in her room. So vivid is the memory of extending my hand down to her on the bed – feeling her in that body – how she would always slither so softly onto my hand. I was so frightened all those times - at least I was in the beginning. I was frightened of her bite. But as time has drawn on I have come to trust her.

She is like a bird, almost timid in a way. She tentatively climbs onto my hand – spirals up my arm, crawls up my shoulder, spins around my neck and then slides down my spine. I shiver every time, but I rather like it. She wraps herself around my waist, climbs up onto my chest, sometimes she settles there, sometimes she continues back to my shoulder. That is the only place she ever bites me in serpent form. Every now and then – she raises herself to my face. Sometimes, I will even kiss her on the tongue just before she returns to her human body. I've always been quite thankful we never take it further when she is in that form, lest our lust be that much stranger.

Through the sheer sleeves of my robe, I can see still the tiny little bite marks from her fangs. That bite she gave me, that little nip - its nothing. It is true. Adder venom is hardly dangerous, even to Muggles. What it has done to me - was only so effective as it had been mixed with all the drugs and alcohol, plus my lack of sleeping and eating.

But these past few times in the woods, I have watched nothing but Nagini. That – thing - is _nothing_ like Tisiphone. That thing is just plain viscous. The sheer size of her... And to think of what she does. Christ, where is she now? I can no longer see her. I shutter to think what she is likely doing at this very moment. She is the true Death Eater, in every sense of the term.

Yes, the similarities are undeniable – for I too have had a reptile drape itself across my body – but it end there! I understand that so completely now. Tisiphone and I are _nothing_ like those two.

Tisi is this tiny little thing, she nips me a bit but than the woman returns. She is a human being – a serpent sometimes but she is a _human_ – she is warm flesh and blood! That _thing_ is a serpent through and through. He chose to love a vicious serpent!

Love her? I don't love Tisiphone – but even if I did she is still _human!_

Love_… _How could I ever love her? I have said it a hundred times. What we have is not love. What we need from each other is - Oh God I want to go home.


	13. Chapter 13

~Sunday Night – My Room - Rain

Complete and total horror. I passed Lily in the hall and felt the usual pangs – but that isn't what hurt the most. Not tonight. Tonight, something else in me died – something I wasn't fully aware of until now.

I stepped into our Common Room I heard the screams the moment I entered. I froze at the horrific sound of it – frozen and something in me instantly died. Avery was screaming at the others – just like – he did, to me.

Avery! No! I never realized until that very moment how much I had come to rely on Avery – but he was _gone_! Avery was gone – turned into _him_.

It was awful. I didn't even hear what he was shouting at everyone, but I could tell how angry he was. He screamed his head off – he was off his head in rage. I still hadn't moved from the threshold. I instantly reverted back to a frightened child – back to the helpless little boy who couldn't do a thing... I knew what was happening. I was so determined to stet forward to stop him – but I hadn't the strength. My voice was gone, fear gripped me yes, but it was the hopelessness that I felt at his betrayal that had so shocked and paralyzed me. He had betrayed _all_ of us! He'd become a lunatic tyrant – just like – him.

Finally I managed to walk forward towards them. It was Wilkes I made out first. "Listen Avery," he cut in, he was trying to sound tough, but failing miserably, "Listen, I know you were friends with all those Seventh Years when we were all younger and you're-" but it was no use, Avery wouldn't let him finish.

"Stay out of it Wilkes!" He screamed – I saw him, red in the face just as the other tyrant had always been – spit flying from his gritted teeth. Avery just kept screaming - he was so far beyond reason. The others looked terrified. Evan was really upset, Tisiphone was crying. I think they saw me, but Avery was too furious to notice. He was still yelling – but then he turned to Tisiphone and Evan. He started shouting about how they hadn't been listening. Dear God, the exact words that had been screamed to me so many times – and there _he_ was – Avery – my friend – using those words against them. It was too much to bear and my head began to swim.

I wanted to block out the sound I wanted to pretend it wasn't happening. In that instant I finally I understood how my Mother had done it all those times. How she had stayed back, frozen in fear and done nothing to help. I thought of her, I thought of what was left of her. I felt awful. I wish I had been more forgiving. I wished in that instant that I could have spent more time with her before she'd become nothing more then a shade but – she avoided me as much as I avoided her. She left me.

At that, I instantly looked back to my foster family – trapped in the same horror I'd fled from in the first place. I had opened my eyes. I could not help but see it. That it was all a dream, I wish it were so – but that was truly happening.

No. Not again – _no!_

I walked forward. I heard the words he yelled to them. I forced myself to hear. "Tisiphone – you will do what is expected of you from now on – do you understand me! Do you understand this is not an idol threat?"

_Threat! _

_No!_

Leave them alone! – Leave them _alone_! - That was all I could think and the next thing I knew I - I stood at the edge of the carpet where they were gathered upon the leather chairs. I had drawn my wand. I don't remember even doing so but there it was in my hand - ready.

Avery still hadn't seen me – but Evan had. He caught my attention, and in absolute terror glared at me. He shot me a look to say - don't dare move or breathe. I nodded and tried to step back behind the stone pillar – but it was no good. My hands had gone weak – I'd forgotten that my wand was in my hand and it slid from my grip. Dear God, the sound upon the floor – the echo – it might as well have been a bomb going off.

Avery rounded on me – _"__You!__"_ he screamed. Just as it had been when I was younger – I had no idea what I could possibly have done to set him off. I said nothing I knew better, and I knew what was coming next. Sure enough he screamed - "God damn it Severus – you're just as bad as they are! Messing every thing up! All our plans in place and – you – _dimwitted_-"

But Evan stood up. Scared though he was, he pleaded with Avery to stop. "Its my fault." He started to say - "They didn't-"

"Rosier shut your fucking mouth – if I wanted your opinion I would have fucking asked for it!" Avery raised his wand, before any of us could react he lowered it and exploded – "All of you get out of my sight before I do something – Go now – NOT you Evan!"

Evan gestured to us to run. What on Earth have Mulciber, Wilkes, Tisi, Evan, and I done? I suspect that if I had stayed and to listen I still would not have understood the source of his anger. Is there ever a reasonable cause? Whatever it was I still don't know. All I know is that Evan took the blame for all of us. Evan of all people – poor Evan. Usually I am the scapegoat. In this group, it has always been he who is the butt of jokes – but we only fucked with him. We only teased him lovingly – always calling him a little shit as a _joke_. Even if he goofed up as he usually does – it could not possibly have been _that_ bad.

After Evan took the fall we all fled to our own rooms. I should go to find one of the others to find out what happened, to find out if they are all right but I'm not sure I should. I want to, but what if it isn't over? What if I were to go and make things worse? As much as I want to help I have to realize that I can't. If I make things worse, Evan's sacrifice will have been in vain - but I cannot stay here and do nothing! I'll wait a quarter of an hour, and then I will check on the others…

For now, there is nothing to do but write. Donovan and the others surely overheard the all the commotion and screaming. Thankfully it has stopped now, as far as I can tell. The guys are making such a racket packing their trunks. I have never been so thankful for their flurry of activity. Every sound is a blessing and I wish they would never stop. I am so sorry for all the times I have ever wished for their silence. Glass just broke in Tristan's trunk. He's laughing. They all are. Such a blessing. Don't ever stop, please…

...My trunk is empty. I don't even want to think about it. Better to think on the pillow Donovan just threw across the room to -

~Sunday Night – Monday Morning

Still awake. Not tired. Not sure of anything at all anymore. Last night what that was – I don't know but it just ended not but a few minutes ago. She just left and I cannot think to do anything but sit by the window with what little light it provides and write.

I was still writing last night – about Avery and that horror. I was sitting on my bed, half sitting half laying back, propped up on my pillows – stiff from it now. I heard the door open the others flinched and instantly put my journal beneath the pillow. She came flying through the door in a fury. She was already crying. She flew to my bed, and flung herself onto it. She fell into a fetal position at my feet and started sobbing.

Donovan saw this and instantly shooed everyone out of the room with out so much as a word – than swiftly followed them out the door. They were gone, and we were alone in the room. I have never seen her like that. I froze. I thought I should say something to her, but it was she who spoke first.

"Sev," That was all she could say through her sobs. Then she crawled up me, just as she would as her serpent self. She slid into my arms and laid her head upon my chest. I was still frozen. After a minute or so, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes. I didn't move. I was so painfully aware of how she could still hear my heart beating hard and fast. Trying to control my breathing, I couldn't think of what to say... She stared up at my face – and she spoke. The gravity in her voice I have never heard – not even when she begged me not to tell anyone about her transformation. I can still here her say it now, it will never leave me. I will forever be haunted by the look in her eyes and those words…

"Severus, I'm scared."

I stared down at her. "I know." There was no hiding it any longer. There was no longer any reason to do so. "I am too," I told her.

Neither of us said anything after that. She put her head back onto my chest, her ear to my heart. I didn't know what to do at all. I stroked her hair. I don't know – I just did what I would have wanted someone to do for me….

Somehow, it seemed enough. The storm outside…I didn't move, I didn't let go of her, and eventually she fell asleep. I stared at the wall. I didn't move. I was nowhere near sleep. So I just kept staring at the wall feeling her weight upon me, her head in my hands.

Donovan sheepishly came back into the room sometime after midnight. We did not speak. Barely a nod, I blinked to let him know it was all right. The others soon followed him. They all took to their beds and fell asleep. I was still awake, still staring at the wall. Nothing to do but let the anxiety take me. Nothing to do but think, about everything.

I thought about her. She is scared, just like I am. I still don't know what Avery was screaming at her for, but now I see it. She is at _their_ mercy. How could I be so blind and not see it? Avery has always treated her that way – as if she is to obey his every command – and she does, without ever complaining. Poor Tisiphone, and I never saw it until now… She is the most forgotten girl of our year. Forgotten by Slughorn when he inducted us into the Slug Club – though she was just as brilliant as all those included… All of the teachers and the students they barely notice her… she just hid in the back of class, like I did. True, she was not picked on as I was, but she was overlooked in every way - and worst of all me. Tisiphone, the forgotten girl…its like some sick joke.

I am not her slave. I have been so wrong. I have been absolutely horrid to her. All this time I thought her to be guilty of using me… but it was I who was using her.

I _used_ her. I will never understand why she came to me all those months ago – but I _used__ her_. I used Tisi to hurt Lily – to forget _her_. Two innocent women hurt by my cruelty. Tisiphone may have done a handful of bad things – but she never deserved what I did to her. I was wrong.

I realized how wrong I have been in thinking her evil. She isn't even bad, and neither is Evan! Avery and Mulciber, they have shown their true colors - Wilkes is not to be trusted either, but she and Evan are not bad people at all... All those times we snuck out – yes we all committed petty stupid crimes, but it was the other three have done the truly sick things against other people. Evan and Tisi - those two were always in the wrong place at the wrong time. The other three were cruel – but not those two…

I got to thinking about her secret ability. I thought about her as the serpent. I thought of how often I had considered her to be a daemon – a horrible monstrous woman who took the form of and evil serpent. But even in that case, I was so terribly wrong in my unfair judgment.

Lying there with her, I had a revelation about the nature of serpents. Less than a week remaining as a Slytherin... and only now have I come to understand The Serpent. The irony of it all… But I hadn't truly thought of it until that moment - as we lay there in what was by far the most awkward and intimidating position we have ever been in.

I thought about her coiling around my body… that tiny little heart I felt, it was not that of a cold, cruel dragon. That heart was ultimately human. And she, as an adder, was just as afraid and unsure as I was. All those times she would coiled herself across my chest to keep warm – just as she does now in human form, I know now, that she did it because she wanted to be close to a human. She wanted to be kept warm – it is what reptiles do, but is that not what human beings do as well?

I thought back to mythology – to Apollo and Python. He killed that serpent – but was punished for doing so. To The Ancients before The Ancient Greeks, serpents were sacred. They were thought to represent the Goddess of Earth herself. They were seen as one with the ground – with Earth - The Great Mother. Serpents are symbols of fertility – of life and rebirth. Serpents are seen by many cultures to be Guardians!

It was only the more recent mythologies that have come to view serpents as evil. Those same mythologies who cast women into a negative role… and now they have cause us to feel guilt and fear of our so-called dark sides, as if things are so simply split. They simplify things to black and white, to red, blue, yellow or green… They would have us curse and blame others for our faults, seeing only fault in others… Only the green ones – only the dark ones are bad…

Or perhaps they are right to do so. Perhaps I am falling even deeper into darkness. Perhaps that I see good in what others see as evil is only further proof of my faults. I don't know.

Are any thoughts my own? All this time – whose thoughts have been in my head? Am I thinking clearly for the first time in my life or am I losing it completely… As usual, I have no idea what to think…

I am afraid to have her so close to my heart. I am afraid of what we have done – but I did all of those things with her _willingly_, and I accept that now.

This strong desire came over me just before dawn… though I don't know how I would even do the thing. But, I thought, perhaps I should attempt to learn Parseltongue – just to say a few words to her in her language… it seemed like it would be a nice thing to do for her. But, I guess it was a silly thought, brought on by exhaustion. One cannot simply learn Parseltongue, can they? I doubt whether they would even have a book on Parseltongue in the Restricted Section. They would never risk such knowledge falling into our hands. Still...

I watched her sleep so soundly… I thought about it. Yes, we did strange things to each other - but no one else got hurt. It was just sex. Was it really so wrong? Was it even wrong at all? Why must we always be made to feel so guilty for who we are? Why must we be judged as guilty just because of the house we were sorted into? We faced our dark sides openly - because they were forced upon us. We were told we were evil the moment we were sorted. The others – they have the same dark desires, but they deny them, and look how they act in the face of their repression.

Yes, we are from the house of the serpent… does that mean we are cursed to cruelty forever? We were all doomed from the start, is that it then? So we were born in sin – and in sin to stay? And does that mean we are wholly evil and the other houses wholly good? They themselves can do no wrong? Their sins are to be forgiven indefinitely? What if I were to speak Parseltongue? What if such a sound were to escape my lips? Was I to speak as such to one who would understand me…

The first light of dawn came to the room. I was still staring at the wall – my heart was racing in fury at the injustice of it all – I think it woke her - she shot up so suddenly. She gasped when she realized where she was. She frantically asked me what time it was, I told her it wasn't yet dawn, "Thank God," she cried. Then told me she had to go before anyone found out where she'd been. I told her not to worry about Donovan and the others – that they were trustworthy and would keep our secret. She nodded than ran from the room.

She left and I started writing. Which brings me to…here. Here, where I sit still in my bed. Sunrises. Monday.

Five more days.

~Monday – The Great Hall

I watched all the others packing last night, they are ready to go. They are ready to start their new lives. First of course they will go home, celebrate new beginnings with their families, and then they will pack their things again. With hope, they will leave home to face their futures.

I Disapparated all those times during the winter... I was so confused every time I found all the things that ended up with me at Hogwarts. Now I know why I did it. I Disapparated all those times because I had no intention ever returning to Spinners End. I will leave straight from here and never look back…

The others are going out onto the grounds. I can't be with them. Not after last night. Today, I'm going down to the dungeon. I'm going to the potions classroom, so I can say goodbye.

~Tuesday – Common Room – Sunny warm

Four more days…. All the excitement around me all this…madness. Tisiphone finally approached me in the hall. I was about to apologize for having avoided her – I truthfully hadn't meant to. It was only Avery I wanted to be nowhere near – but before I could tell her that she pulled me into an empty classroom.

She started in rambling – "Severus I'm so sorry, Avery doesn't want us to see each other – he's down the hall he-"

"What!"

She didn't explain - she just said it didn't matter. Then she started asking me if I was going to the End-of-Term Feast – as if that mattered.

Of course I'm not going. I explained to her that I wasn't. I told her that at the last meeting I'd been asked to spy on some lunatic woman during the last day of school. No one had else wanted to do it. In truth, I didn't want to do it either – but I leapt at the chance. Any excuse to not go to The End-of-Term Feast.

She just shook her head. She was really upset. "I don't know when we'll see each other again. They're sending me to Hogsmeade as a spy." She explained, "I'm going to be barmaid at the Three Broomsticks. That's my cover – from there I am to keep watch over all that happens in Hogsmeade."

"So am I!" I told her, "I will be a spy in Hogsmeade too - so obviously we'll see each other. We both know - I do drink a lot..." Well I do.

"No! No you don't understand!" she just started carrying on. She kept saying, "Its too dangerous. We can't see each other! I don't know what's going to happen –it will be too dangerous!" What could I say? She was so frightened - she was shaking like a leaf. She said suddenly that she thought she heard someone coming. She begged me to be careful as she fled from the room.

What has gotten into her? Is this her way of getting rid of me? Found someone else has she? I admit I never thought much about what would become of our strange relationship after school ended but – honestly this is silly. All this Dark Lord – spy shit isn't serious…

All silly, all silly. What am I doing? I need to pack. I need to pack. No I don't. I own so little it will barely fill my trunk. I fancy a walk, or anything just all so… three more days. Will I never see the lake again? The Pitch even?

~Tuesday Night – My room – Late

I got back to my room after having gone for a long walk. I found new clothes on my bed. I didn't have to read the note. I knew where they had come from. So understated. So unlike anything else she's ever given me. They actually seem appropriate for me… Nothing special about them at all…

I finally read the note. Tisiphone said they were as plain as paper – to help me hide. She left them for me…

It helps.

~Wednesday Morning – My Room

I put on the clothes she gave me. No complicated flowing garments about me. Nothing ornate – just a practical, plain black linen coat and trousers.

I've been lying to myself again. It isn't a joke. He's fucking serious. Dear God what have we gotten ourselves into…


	14. Chapter 14

~Wednesday – My room – Midday Sun

Procrastinating packing. Here in my room, placing my things in the trunk, and now I have come across the bottle of Felix Felicis.

Obviously I had to stop. Now way I could continue packing after finding that. I had put it out of my mind but now – now it is all come back to me. Everything it has come to stand for…

Funny, when I first held the vile – when it was first handed to me in class I swear it was warm. I remember – the golden fluid was as the sun itself. Not now. Now I hold it… the glass vial of Liquid Luck in my hand is cold and hard, just like my heart.

Just, frozen now. What should I do? I still want more than anything to give it to Lily, but I know I cannot.

I should spill it out – just forget it all together. It is truly my only option is it not? Surely I cannot pack it… Surely now I cannot pack at all.

Three more days. – Less than that. God help me.

~Thursday – My room – my empty room

I Disapparated to Spinners End last night. I did it while everyone was asleep of course but in the end I decided to leave most of my things there. I won't need much where I am going.

Its still morning. One more thing to do, I think.

~Thursday Night – My Room 

It's done. I gave it to her. For a moment I had this horrific feeling that it was happening all over again. But she took it. It was all I could do, and… it's done.

I went to Tisiphone's room. She jumped in fear when she saw me. "Sev – get out of here – if Avery sees you – its too dangerous now - run."

She was right of course. "I know." I told her. "I know it is too dangerous. I understand that now. That's why I'm here." I shut the door behind me, cast Muffliato and made to give the vile of Felix Felicis to her. She knew instantly what it was.

"No Sev," she was saying before I had opened my hand. I tried to place it in her hand but she pushed it away. "No – no I can't accept such a thing - please- " Why was she protesting this way! For a second I thought – but then no – this wasn't going to happen the way Lily had rejected the potion… It couldn't be. Not again. Please not again…

"Please – take it," I begged her. I don't know what I had expected to happen when I offered it to her, but I wasn't prepared for _that_. She looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears… Why? She tried to speak but couldn't seem to manage it.

Finally she said to me, "I can't take it. You can't give it to me because I know what it m-" But couldn't let her finished – I placed my finger to her lips in terror – for I was sure I'd heard footsteps outside in the corridor. My paranoia was complete. By then I had come to understand just how right she had been. I finally understood the danger that we all faced. Muffliato or not I could not risk our conversation being overheard.

"You have to take this," I told her. I placed the vile in her hand and closed her fingers over it. I could still feel in her body that she meant to protest, but I told her again, "You _have_ to take it. If it all gets to be too much, use the Liquid Luck and get out."

"No no no," she kept saying. She was shaking her head and crying.

"Listen to me, all of this madness _will _take our lives at some point." I told her, "You _have_ to take it. It is going to come to that. You may think us in danger now, but things are _going_ to get worse – and when they do, you have to run for it –"

-"What about you!" She grabbed my hand with her free hand and wouldn't let me finish – _"What about you!"_ she kept saying it. She started carrying on – "I'll wait for you I'll wait for you at the tree where we snogged!"

I told her that wouldn't work. She started going on about how she would keep going there to look for me. She was being ridiculous. I told her so. I told her not to say such silly things. Obviously I could not go with her. Besides I knew she could not truly mean it. But after I explained _that_ to her, she started crying again. Girls are so dramatic. She kept protesting and kept saying, "What about you?"

"Forget me," I told her. She was reluctant and kept crying. I pushed her hand away from my shoulder and forced it down to her other hand. "Keep your head down for a while – don't do anything – and when you see your first chance – run." At that I closed both of her hands over the vile, "Tisi, please, take this and run."

Finally she accepted. "Yes," she said. Then - still crying she begged me, "Sev, come tomorrow to the End-of-Term Feast, please?"

"All right," I told her, "I'll try." I let go of her hands.

"I'll see you tomorrow!" She called after me as I made to leave. I turned around, waved to her, and forced a smile.

I'm not going tomorrow of course, but – I didn't know how to tell her. I couldn't bring myself to say it. Even in that instant as I knew what was happening, but I wouldn't – and still won't let myself think it. I just kept thinking how I needed to get back here and find where I left my favorite quill. I found it of course… I figured I should write… I have and now, that's it. It's done. It is all done now.

I can leave in the morning, just before dawn. Leave, and never look back. Just hours remain now… Dear God, I will never see this place in daylight again.

~Friday – My room – Just before dawn

Tisiphone is gone, her I have let go. Its over. I have done all I can for Tisiphone, and she is gone.

The moment I let go of her once and for all, my thoughts turned to Lily…. and they have not left her since. The other girl was a friend, but Lily is the love of my life. I will never see her again, but she will haunt my thoughts wherever I go from here... I miss her already more than I can bear. And I know how foolish that is…

I have to leave. The others will awake soon and – tonight we are all to take the train back to London, but I must leave now. It is over.

The shelter of the school is lost to me. I am truly alone.

~Mid July – Hogsmeade – Mist

It's been over a month. I do as I am told, though thankfully I am not told to do very much. Yet.

He has me tracking the fortunetellers. I am to report back on their predictions. And when there are no predictions to be made, I am to monitor all the talk and activity in The Hogshead.

I do as I'm told…

~Saturday –Hogsmeade – Clear Fall day.

She is getting married – to him. They say she is even already pregnant. My life is over.

I am married to my new life – to my new mission – to serve The Dark Lord. What else do I have? This is all I have and I will do my best to serve him well. This is my family, who took me in after all else had forsaken me. Horrible though they may be, this is all I have ever had.

I have no doubts now – I shut them out. I forsake everything I ever was. I am a Death Eater, just as I would be a Sin Eater. I am tainted and cursed - meant to take on the sins of others. I am meant for darkness. I am meant to destroy. I destroy all that is light, for the light left me ages ago. I am the void.

If only it were so simple. Even now I am to be torn - living neither in his world nor the ordinary world. I spy for him after all. Cut off from all humanity – Death Eaters and innocent humans alike. I see no one save him. I am half alive and half dead.

Half-life. Half-blood - split down the center. Two marks, one light - one dark. I betray. I _lie_. They were all right. I am as evil as they all once thought me to be.

I am a puppet. I am a slave, and yet I chose to live in bondage. I chose this, because I somehow, I always knew what would happen. The other world didn't want me. Why should I want it?

I have what I want now. I have all but disappeared. I exist between worlds, between the walls where no one can see me. I hear the whispers no one else can hear, and speak only to repeat the words of others. I am barely an echo now… as well it should be.

~The Loft – October – Already Cold.

Keep your head down and lie or

Stand fight and die

-In vain.

There is no choice.

~Snowing November Saturday

I'm on tonight at the Hogshead. Today, the thought crossed my mind. I thought about going to see Lily. Obviously I didn't. The very thought itself of it was a mortal Sin.

And this fool hearty work he has for me – tailing fortunetellers - we'll all end up dead or in Azkaban - of that I am certain. I need no prophecy to tell me that is our fate so why than does he? How can no one else see where this will all end?

I knew once – I knew darkness only lead to more darkness…but I continue. I chase the seers because that is my destiny. Just waiting for it now….

~The Loft – Early December –Hogsmeade Night

All these months I have felt cold, dead and emotionless. But today – I saw her! I saw her in Hogsmeade walking down the High Street. I don't know why she was there - wandering about like that but I saw her! She was here, and even though he was with him, it was the most wonderful sight I have seen since I can remember.

I felt things – this rush of sheer joy washed over me – and I was alive again. I hadn't realized how numb I'd been. But she was here, and my heart feels full of light still.

I don't ever want to forget the way I feel now. I don't want to go back to the way I was. This life that I live – it has taken over everything. This cursed life I live has killed off all that I ever was. I'd forgotten my old life – forgotten her. I thought that all a dream. But it wasn't. She was real to me once. She is real still – for there she was, walking the streets in the sunshine glowing radiant like an angel.

Back in my dusty loft, where I hide from the world in the attic of the inn – barely a crawlspace that I call home. There is no light up here where I lay in darkness every night alone. But I am not in darkness tonight. The light is still with me, it cannot leave me - today - I saw her eyes.

~Late December – Hogsmeade Night

Still at it. Still this continues.

"_I need your eyes. Tell me what you see. Tell me what they say about me Severus," _he says. What they say about him? They don't say anything about him. The bar patrons, the fortunetellers – they don't say anything about him – or anything – ever.

I'm spying on a pub. What am I to report back, that Ludo Bagman can't hold his liquor? Or that Fudge sometimes snogs another woman who is not his wife - that's an important subject. Right, maybe the Dark Lord can use that bit of information to hurt his next bid for office. What the fuck, if he wanted someone to keep him informed of all the latest gossip why did he not just go after Bertha Jorkins and get her to join him. Surely she is privy to far more dirt than I…

And yet, as stupid as all this is – I don't dare let on my feelings. I want no part of this. Yes Muggles are problematic to be around at times – but this is sick. If I had known back then that he was serious about his plans to spread fear and terror - if I had realized he had this sick Nazi plot in place I would never have gone along with it!

Yes, I know now just how stupid I was. I fucked up – I knew it the second his wand touched my skin. I regretted my decision that instant! I felt my very soul violated by the act, but it was done and I knew it could not ever be undone.

What could I do? I couldn't exactly go back to the school and ask for help. They say The Dark Lord fears only Dumbledore. But I couldn't very well go to him for help. It's not that I fear him, and it wasn't for lack of respect that I did not turn to him - but he certainly never took me seriously.

He never took me seriously. He didn't listen to me when I told him about Potter and his crew sneaking out, stealing from the kitchens or tormenting students and such. He never punished them when they were guilty. He never did anything to stop them. Would this be any different?

He never looked out for me before. Was I to run to him and beg protection for myself from a horrible man that I went to willingly, when he wouldn't protect me from a group of boys who attacked me with out provocation?

Should I run now? How could I? I am more afraid to run now then I was those last few months of school. I'm worried about my friends. Not so much Mulciber, Avery, and Wilkes. They can take care of themselves – unfortunately - for I fear the consequences of their continued existence far more then I fear mine. I am far more afraid for the other two. She is afraid, that I know, and Evan… I don't even know.

I'm worried about everyone I left on the outside. I'm worried about my parents. My mother is a witch after all. She will not be hard for him to track down. He will find them. Whatever happened when I was younger - I don't care anymore. I don't want anything bad to happen to them. If he becomes unhinged again… He went after Alecto Carrow's mother – her aunt - just the other day for her failure, and Alecto is a true believer. She has no qualms about doing what ever it takes to further his cause. I cannot risk failure. I cannot risk any harm coming to my family, especially my mother.

This is a disaster. My one hope is that this is such a disorganized mess. His plans for a new world order are ridiculous and he will fail. I can only hope it will fail sooner rather then later.

~ Some freezing night in December

He has given me a new mission. Infiltrate the school. Take on the Defense Against the Dark Arts post.

I don't understand it. He is obsessed with that post. No idea how I will manage such a thing. At least it isn't some horrible command. Seems fairly innocuous in fact. I'll do it of can I suppose… But for now, I am to keep watch on all the seers. Stupid.

~January Middle of the night - snowstorm

Really, really drunk. I don't drink any more. I haven't for months but… this blizzard has nearly shut down Hogsmeade. Nothing to do. Dead of winder.

Cold, blustery wind – dead. Memories plagued me. Started drinking. Kept snowing. Kept drinking. More snow… more memories … no sound but the violent wind to block out my thoughts.

Really drunk so I – did something. I'm not sure, how I feel, or if I do feel, but – that is behind me now. It's done. I think it the right thing to have done. I will live with it just fine and now I need not think on it ever again. Given the placement – I shall not see it to think on it again.

And now I shut it out, slink back to my crawl space to sleep…

~Thursday – February - Cold

I have come to realize something. It is not possible for Heaven to exist. Heaven for one is to be with another person. But that other person - forced to be with the one who desires them - would think themselves to be in Hell. So how than can Heaven exist?

There is no Heaven. There is no Hell. Nothing matters at all.

~February – Snowstorms 

There is no end to it. No end to the winter no end to this horror. That poor Muggle girl they took her – it's all over the papers – I know it was them – us – the side I am on! How could they be so cruel!

She was a _child!_ All of the others were adults – not that it makes matters any better – but she was a _child!_ In my worst fears I never thought things would go this far.

I was a fool not to see this coming!

The disappearances, the deaths - the terror. The rumors of Inferi walking about freely! The rumors of out right torture - I do not doubt any of it. This is a war – and I am to blame…

I want out.

_I want out! _ I hate myself. I am so ashamed of it -I sob still at the memory! I _have _wanted out since the moment he branded me - I hate it! I don't want to do this anymore! Please - let me go!

Should I run to Dumbledore? I keep thinking about doing it - Would he take me? I don't know… How could he – how could anyone?

I'm a Death Eater!

I'm a _Death Eater_! I am more cursed and tainted now than ever I was! I am a sick terrible - horrible person. I deserve death! I deserve death and torture for what I have been a part of!

We will all end up dead or in Azkaban. It cannot happen soon enough.

I want out... I want it, but no one ever gets out. "You can never leave," "Once a Death Eater you're always one." No one will take me in. Only death will set me free. But history has proven that time and time again - I am too much a coward to do it myself.

I am afraid to die – I am afraid to live - I don't know what to do…

~February

Evan.

~March for once I know – it is a Tuesday

I saw the Dark Lord today for the first time in months. I actually had information for him for a change, and I was desperate to leave this place… So I met him and told him what I had heard. A fortuneteller has had a vision that might possibly involve him. A woman spoke of "The most powerful Wizard Alive," that he could see the true value of life…

He seemed very interested in this and I really don't see why. She was drunk on cheep cooking sherry I don't see why he should care what she says but now he wants me to keep a closer eye on her he wants to hear _"All the brilliant predictions made pertaining to me."_

I'm afraid. I am so afraid that I have cursed this woman. What if she does not continue to make such predictions! What if the fates fall silent to her? He has killed people for less. I will keep watch over her. For her sake, I hope she continues her crazy clairvoyance… if need be, I suppose I can lie if such need arises…

~I think it still May

Out of sheer boredom I re-read this today. I don't know why I even keep it. Too many painful memories. I should burn it. I don't expect to live much longer any way.

~Night on a Thursday?

Dear God – what have done.

I should have died! I should have died long ago – either in school or in an accident! I could have done it myself! God knows how often I thought of it when I was younger why didn't I do it when I had the chance! I should have died - the others have been murdered or captured so why wasn't I?

That I lived and allowed this to happen is the greatest sin - if she dies – if they die it will be my fault. Why did I tell him! Why didn't think! I couldn't do the math and realize it had meant him – her son!

I should die right now on this spot - I should kill myself why am I still writing why am I not at least doing Sectumsempra - because that won't help anything! That won't stop what's coming and that won't make me hurt enough - nothing can if all my skin were torn off -there is no punishment on Earth or in Hell that can match what I have done –

Oh dear God what shall I do - what can I do! I can turn myself in - if I turn myself in then they will surely die - along with how many others because I will be asked to name names and I know they are not all guilty because half of them are not even themselves anymore because he has his hand up their asses making them think and speak through Imperious! And because I know what else must have happened by now –

No. There will be more blood on my hands if I turn myself in. I wish I could turn myself in! I should be in prison! I deserve more than anyone to be punished by Dementors – but there again that won't solve this

I'd run to Dumbledore, but he never trusted me. Were I to beg him and offer my life he would not take it because he always took their side and even though it is there side he'd let them die to spite me I know it…

I have to do something. I don't care what I have to do I'll do anything!

I have to – I will do everything I can that is within my power to protect them – they are all that matters. James – even James I would gladly die to save him – and her son! Her _son_ – Dear God he is an _infant!_ Take my life! Take it! Let them live - let her live - please God let them all live!

If I beg him – if I offer him anything – he will help he has to I know it

~May - Night

He swears he will…

Not sure what is – what town Hogsmeade am I –

I have never been so afraid in my life… God help them – how dare I –

~July

It's a boy. They named him Harry.

~January it's a Tuesday

I still play part. I still play dead. One false more and it all falls apart. I am not afraid to die, but I have never been more afraid in my life. I don't dare write much, I don't dare undo the seals on this book. I do as he says. I do nothing, I see no one. I am more alone now than ever I was, and I can't do anything to help. I hate feeling helpless but its better this way. I have no right to… I can only stay silent and pray that silence will be enough.

~November

The world is over. There is nothing left to me but to serve him – he who is all that is left to me.

There is no time now –

All I am – all I have said and done - all I have brought upon – I should have died but I didn't.

Keep your head down and lie or

Stand, fight and die – in vain.

There is no choice – there never was.

I finally understand that now – I understand everything now – that it is too late. Even now I cannot stop crying to see straight to write but I know and this last act must be done...

All those times I was afraid, I wanted to be fearless and I wasn't. It doesn't matter. Even now I am afraid I will fail… but courage has nothing to do with being unafraid.

Bravery has nothing to do with dying. I could have died but I didn't. That I live now – that I can use what I know of the other side to our sides advantage that is all that matters. I will stay silent until the moment comes – and when it does, we will stop this – all of this - _forever_.

Everyone is gone, anyone I cared about and it is I who is to blame for it. I am to blame for so many things….

All of my sins do I fully see now. I should have given my life once before in another form but did not do so for my stupidity. In truth that was never a possibility, I was not meant for such things and yet still, it was wrong, and I am sorry.

One last sacrifice for one final sin.

I bury this book in the Earth, and to that, know that I still live inside… this that I bury as my sacrifice… poor substitute that it is…

If you meant it, then I am sorry. But this is all I can give, and all I can do to explain. There is no time. There is nothing remaining in me to offer other than this shadow of my past. I shed my past now, as one sheds a skin. When the moment comes, I will be ready. My old life is over - I die to live another life. But this next life will not be my own.

My life belongs to him now.

…

"_If it keeps on raining, levee's going to break._

_When the levee breaks I'll have no place to stay_

_Crying won't help you, praying won't do you no good…"_

For years I was unsure if I should write this account, but now I know that it must be done. All this is quite difficult to relate. I am thoroughly ashamed of my past, and there is so much that I would gladly take back. As painful as is to write, to read, and to remember, it must be done. Only through examining our past mistakes and transgressions, can we come to truly understand what transpired. Only through that understanding can we make certain that none of this will ever happen again.

It is quite simple to say, those of us who willingly became Death Eaters were wrong. We were of course, but what others must understand is that no one is born into evil. We are all defined by choices, yes, but choices for some are not so easy. Choices for most, are far more limited than we like to believe.

Not a day goes by that I don't regret taking the Dark Mark. Were I to go back now, knowing what I know, I would have never followed Avery down that path. All of those times I could have turned back. All of those times, I could have done the right thing… All of that precious time I once had, and I never told him how much I loved him.

I loved Severus from the moment I set eyes on him and he never knew…

He was right. I had been with many boys before him. I behaved in the same wild manner with them as I did with him. But it pains me now to know he so often thought me unfaithful when we were together. From the moment we first shared that kiss I never once went back to any of my former flings. I was completely, hopelessly in love with him, and only him. I would have told him I loved him, but what good would it have done? It hurts, to hold the man you love, when the emblem of the woman he loves is emblazoned so boldly on his arm.

I fell in love with Severus the first moment I saw him on step onto the Hogwarts Express. He walked past me with out noticing how I stood transfixed in his presence. He took the compartment next to mine, with Lily. I wished the entire train ride for the courage to, at the very least introduce myself but, I had just lost my sister and I was still quite shaken.

My sister had left for Hogwarts two years earlier. We were always so close to one another. We were practically twins, but she died of a sudden illness shortly after returning home for the summer holidays. I'd always imagined my first trip on the train, how she would be there to hold my hand. I was always so sure she would be there to guide me through my first year. As I sat watching Severus and Lily talk and laugh, I felt her absence that much more. I remember thinking that had Meg been there, she surely would have introduced us, and so I let my grief get the better of me.

I couldn't believe my luck when I had been given another chance just hours later when we all lined up to be sorted in The Great Hall. I stood just behind him in the queue of students, I still couldn't find the courage to speak to him but I stood behind him taking him in all the same. His sweet face, his beautiful long black hair... Oh yes I sat there all those years listening to the nose jokes, and the greasy hair taunts. They were terribly exaggerated and I fear he took those cruel comments to heart. He was in truth, a very striking young man…

I couldn't take my eyes off of him. For such a young boy there was already such a sadness and loss in his eyes. I suppose, that is why I fell so hard for him. I sensed a kindred spirit with whom I could share my heart. I always felt so out of place, and he seemed to feel the same. I was so grateful to be standing with him in those fearful moments we spent waiting to be sorted.

I had almost worked up the courage to ask him his name when Minerva McGonagall called for him to be sorted. She said his name. I remember repeating that name to myself several times before I finally remembered where we were. I looked up in time to see him sorted. I had just watched my cousin be sorted into Slytherin. My whole family before me, save for my sister in Ravenclaw were all Slytherins. So there was of course a great pressure for me to continue the family legacy, but all that mattered little to me until the instant I saw Severus Snape sorted into Slytherin.

The hat took ages it seemed, when my time came. I was terrified but in the end my wish was granted, and I was sorted with him into Slytherin.

Of course it didn't take long for me to understand where I truly stood. I could tell after our first day that he was deeply in love with Lily Evans. But she seemed so kind so on our forth day I decided to put prejudice aside and ask her if she loved Severus. She laughed sweetly at my prying question. She said that she thought of him as her brother. We both giggled together as little girls do. Then she asked me, "Do you?" I told her the truth, and begged her not to tell anyone. She never did. She was such a nice girl.

I fully understood why he loved her so very much. I accepted it, but I always hoped he would one day come around. I never gave up the hope that he, like Romeo to Roselyn would cease to love her from afar, but of course that never happened. Instead I spent most of my time with my cousin and his friends. He would come around sometimes. I was always so thrilled when he did, but he never stayed with us long. No one knew where he would disappear to, but I knew. He would always sneak off to see what Lily and the other Gryffindor kids were doing.

I had all but given up hope. Then in our last year he started spending time with us again. Lily and James became a couple. It took all the courage I had, but I took my chance asked him to my room. He came of course, night after night he came to me, but I knew he was never really there with me.

He was always so distant and so tense when we were together. I knew why this was of course, but I never let on for fear of exacerbating his distress. I knew his thoughts were of her. I knew his heart and his soul were always with her, but that it was me whom he saw when he looked out from those sad eyes. That is why I took to blindfolding him. I thought that if he could not see, he could better imagine that I was Lily.

I did it for his sake. To a naïve teenage girl, it seemed at the time, to be the least I could do for him. It all seemed so unfair. Night after night I was able to be with the one I loved when he himself could not.

I continued this practice when I designed his mask, or at least I tried. Wilkes did not include the blinders I had designed for it. Even then, especially then I wanted to obscure his vision. I did not want him to see the horror we had brought him to. We were all such bad kids in school. We were for so long, nothing more than naïve children rebelling until we found our proper place. But when Avery brought us to him, I knew it we had crossed the line. I was scared, but I knew there was no turning back. Worse, I knew Severus was only there because of us. He was innocent, and I foolishly thought, that if he did not see the evil we would commit, he would remain safe.

It didn't work of course. Would that he had not heard those words that night, would that we had kept to our studies and not snuck out all those times… Had I known those nights were those walks to Hogsmeade would eventually lead, I am certain neither he nor I, nor even Evan would have continued… but the time for those choices are long since past.

I have committed so many sins. I have spent these long years since those times doing all that I could to make amends. So many foolish acts I look back upon now. In my youth I was so distressed. Why I became a serpent I cannot say. I was ashamed of my Animagus form even then. I told no one save Severus, and he, bless his soul, never once let on that he was repulsed by me. Never once did he betray my trust. I have not transformed since those years, and yet still I can remember how it was. I was always so cold in serpent form, but gliding across his skin, feeling so intensely the beat of his heart, I always felt warmth in mine.

We reptiles can be so cold and violent, but that is only a small part of what we are. We are predators yes, but we too desire love. So often we serpents are seen as aggressors, but there is a delicate, graceful manner in which we can move, and caress that which we love. We are seen as low, but being so closely rooted to the Earth, we posses a strong sense of intuition that others do not. We have a deep understanding of all that we touch. When I crept across him, I sensed his kind, loving, albeit deeply wounded heart as no one else ever did. No one knew him for what he truly was. That innocent boy with sad eyes who stood beside me in The Great Hall all those years ago that I saw, that I still see what no one else ever saw. They looked at him and saw dirty hair and a green robe. He was judged so unfairly. He never had a chance.

I fear now – knowing how he has always suffered such intense guilt for his actions, how he must be punishing himself for his mistakes after what happened to James and Lily. I know that He Who Must Not Be Named acted on the intelligence gleamed from a fortuneteller. I know he had Severus watching the fortunetellers. I fear now the anguish he must suffer, for surely he blames himself. I can only imagine all to well, all the many years he has spent punishing himself and attempting to atone. It must have been so awful for him. I know. I too have faced the same torment.

It should have been me who died in Godric's Hollow that night. It should have been me, Tisiphone, the Death Eater named after a fury who died, and not an innocent young mother. That vile of Felix Felicis was always meant for her. I knew all to well what that glass vile represented to Severus, and that is why I refused it so adamantly. All of his hard work and sacrifice was meant for her and not me. But in the end, I had to accept it. Still, the knowledge Lily died and I lived because of that vile which was meant for her, haunts me every moment of every day.

I did exactly what he told me to do. I waited. The war became too terrible, Evan had already died and I knew it was only a matter of time before they asked me to fight and kill as they had him. I drank the Felix Felicis Severus had given me. That night there was a meeting. Every single Death Eater, save Severus was there. I couldn't believe it. A fight broke out between a few of the masked Death Eaters, and it quickly became a full-scale brawl between almost everyone in attendance.

I knew it would be my only chance, and I was not about to squander what Severus had sacrificed for me. My wand was out, and before I even knew what I was doing, I had cast Obliviate - on every single Death Eater. Even now I know the odds of such a thing to be imposible, but my Memory Charm had worked on all of them, including He Who Must Not Be Named. Not one of them noticed. They all just went back to fighting. You Know Who himself turned to break it up. At that, I ran and never looked back.

The Memory Charm was entirely succseful. I know this, because the moment I escaped the mark on my arm had faded. It still seems impossible, but it happened. Though I still feel the shame of it as if it were still upon me, my Dark Mark is gone. God bless Horace and Severus. I know the price of my freedom. It was unfairly given to me when so many others were forced to suffer.

I did exactly as I promised. I waited for him, at our tree in the forest. I went back nearly every day after I fled, but he never came. One day however, I returned to find a record lying at the roots of the tree. A wizard passing by would certainly over look it as a piece of Muggle rubbish. I however, recognized it instantly. The black and white image of a man, whom we always said was no mere Muggle, was none other David Bowie. The record was Heroes, my favorite, as Severus of course knew. We listened it together so often, and I knew it instantly to be a sign from him.

I lifted it from the ground and found the earth beneath to be slightly disturbed. I dug and after a few moments, I found his journal, and nothing else. I had no idea what to make of it at first, but all too soon I realized that he had left it for me because he never meant to come back.

I cried for weeks. I debated even longer the merits of reading the book. He was always so secretive. I couldn't bear to invade his privacy in such a way. Finally I came to accept that he had left it for a reason. Perhaps I would even find some explanation inside, but I didn't.

To read it was agony. I felt such guilt at doing so, and such sadness for him. I knew he was hurt, but I had no idea the full extent of his suffering. As I feared, his journal offered no answers, and his words only filled me with more guilt and sadness. It took years for me to fully understand. With Severus, there were no simple answers.

I never put much stock into his final entries. By then he seemed so far from reason, and in my distress could not accept the things that he wrote. So easy had it been for me to accept all the entries in which he accused me of terrible evil, for I believed myself to be guilty of it. It took years for me to accept that in the end he had tried to understand me. Reading his final entry I think he may have been trying to convey things to me, things he was far to afraid to express outright should his journal fall into the wrong hands.

Still, all this has provided me little closure. My only solace these many years has been my work. After The War, I fled the world we knew. I ran in fear, guilt and shame to the outskirts of the world. I live now as moderately as possible in a small cottage hidden deep in a forest. I have been in hiding. All of the Death Eaters who got away, my family among them, they are still out there. I am afraid of them. I am afraid that they will find me one day and come to remember me.

Still, I have not given into that fear completely. I emerge from my protections and solitude from time to time in order to help as many people as I can. I have dedicated myself to healing. I have been discretely using my potion making skills to help Wizards and Muggles alike. That is all I can do.

I know what he has done for her son, and I can only hope my efforts will be in equal measure to his sacrifice. It is all that I can do.

I write this account now, for I fear what history will reflect of him. Though I cannot release our words yet, when the moment comes, the world will know who we were, how he saved me, and how he surely saved countless others.

He wanted so much to give me a gift on my birthday, to repay me for that silly coat. He worried over what he would give me. Though he did not mean it as such or even notice the date, he gave me that vile three days before my birthday. I gave him a coat and he saved my life. I helped lead him down that dark path. I got away, and he never even had a chance.

Judge me all you will for I am guilty. He will certainly be accused for many evil deeds. He is guilty, as is everyone of making many mistakes. Yes, his actions caused terrible things to happen, but before one can judge those actions, one must fully accept what led him to such deeds. There are those who will say he chose wrong. He did, but he had far less of a choice than most care to see. They see only what they want to see. They see a simplified version of the truth where people are separated cleanly into good an evil. That is too easy. Life and truth are never so simple.

The truth is that Severus was put into an imposible position. The world failed him. In the end he was left with no place else to turn.

His family did not care for him, as all children deserve to be cared for. The school only failed him further as well all know. I failed him too. I should have given him my love. I should have been open with him. I should have told him the truth. Perhaps if he had known love, none of this would ever have happened.

I should have tried. Despite my knowing he would never reciprocate, I should have told him I loved him, and now it is too late. I last saw him just a few days before graduation. I never even got to say good-bye. I should have tried.

The world is what we make of it. We are defined by our choices, but do not be so quick to judge the choices made by others that you do not like or understand. Do not see the world for black and white, but for its beautiful shades of gray. Be patient and try to understand before you draw lines in the sand.

If you see an injustice, if you see a child picked on, if you see anything you feel is wrong, please stand up. Do not be afraid to fight for what you believe in. Above all else, do not be afraid to love. You will be hurt, and you will be rejected at some point but that kind of hurt only helps us to grow and better understand others. Do not be afraid to love. Only through devotion to each other and to the world at large can we hope for a better life.

I know what Severus has done. He is a hero. And I can only hope that when the moment comes, we will all be as strong, and as brave as was he…

_-Tisi_


End file.
